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Altar of St Jerome

St. Jerome
Born - c.347
Died - 420

Feastday - 30 September

Statue created - c.1662-1667
The statue is part of the group of 24 that were installed between September 1662 and March 1667.

Sculptor - unknown
The documents do not attribute the statue to any other any known sculptor working on the colonnade end area.

Height - 3.1 m. (10ft 4in) travertine
According to the usual iconography, the saint has a long beard and hollow face.  He is dressed in a cloak with pleats on the right arm, and is wrapped around the hips. The palm that he holds in his left hand is usually an attribute of a martyr, but here it is an alusion to the weaving of mats and baskets out of palm leaves which was how the Desert Fathers earned a living in those days.

St. Jerome was a priest, confessor, theologian and historian, who became a Doctor of the Church.  The naked upper part of his body is traditional in the iconography, because he spent two years at a monastic colony of Chalcis in the Syrian Desert before going to Rome to be the secretary of Pope Damasus in 382.  He is best known for his translation of the bible into Latin (know as the Vulgate).