In the Footsteps of Piero della Francesca: The Venice Sequel -- Saint Jerome and a Donor

Experts are uncertain as to when* Saint Jerome and a Donor was painted but, according to Alessandro Angelini (Piero della Francesca, SCALA, 2023), it is "probably to be included amongst the 'many paintings of small figures' mentioned by Vasari as being commissioned by several rulers during the artist's journeys in the Marches and Emilia Romagna."

The painting is currently resident in the Gallerie dell'Accademia and I happened upon it, with no foreknowledge, while traversing its halls. It shows St Jerome dressed in a tunic which is cinched at the waist with a thorny branch. He is sitting on a stone bench and pauses in the midst of his reading as a supplicant kneels before him.

Piero della Francesca, St Jerome and a Donor

Piero's signature appears on the truncated tree trunk that serves as the base of the crucifix. The inscription in the foreground identifies the supplicant as Gerolama Amadi, a member of a wealthy merchant family from Lucca. Gerolama has commissioned the work.

"The donor and his protecting saint appear to be conversing as equals, for it was obviously Piero's intention to exalt the human dignity of his patron ... The bright hues of color are similar to the clear sunlit atmosphere of the London Baptism of Christ, and even the background, with its rolling hills and steep country paths, confirms a vision of landscape that was first anticipated in the London painting ... with bare hills, partially covered with vegetation ... burnt out by a Mediterranean sun, the city walls are made of white lime and the water of the river is transparent" (Angelini). 

As is the case in many of Piero's paintings, there is a distinct verticality in the effort.

The painting was previously owned by Count Bernardino Renier and was a legacy from his wife Felicita Bertrand Helmann to the Gallerie in 1850 in keeping with her husband's will.

Piero della Francesca

Italian

1412/16 - 1492

Saint Jerome and a Donor

49 x 42 cm

Gallerie dell'Accademia

Catalog #: 47 

Legacy of Felicita Renier, 1850

*According to the institution, "the chronological location of the painting in Piero's production has been the subject of lively discussion, even if we tend to accept its dating at the beginning of the seventh decade of the fifteenth century, just after the Resurrection of Christ of the Municipal Art Gallery of Sansepolcro, datable approximately to 1458 - 59, with which it shows some affinities in the relationship between the figures and the hilly background."