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Around 1400 the Sienese Lorenzo Monaco had one of the most flourishing workshops in Florence. He produced book illustrations and altarpieces, some for his own monastery. Lorenzo's oeuvre displays an evolution from the Florentine late Trecento manner to the more flowing style of painting generally known as International Gothic, typified by figures delineated by the flowing lines of draperies. Lorenzo deployed the idiom with extraordinary delicacy. Unlike many other painters of the International Gothic, he had a natural talent for monumental figure compositions.
Lorenzo's St Jerome forms part of a diptych, accompanying a Madonna of Humility. Even on the small scale of the diptych he has created a figure that dominates the picture surface. What is even more remarkable is that he succeeded in combining the saint, the lion and the study into a single convincing image. Jerome was not a great miracle-worker or preacher, nor did he die for his faith after harrowing torments. He earned his saintly status by translating the Bible into Latin from Greek and Hebrew. That is why Lorenzo portrayed him in a study. The lecturn has two shelves, one holding the book to be translated, the other the translation. St Jerome ranks second in the hierarchy of the Fathers of the Church, and as a cardinal, despite the fact that the office of cardinal was unknown in his own day. That is how he is usually depicted, although Lorenzo preferred to show him as a monk. Jerome's red cardinal's hat can be glimpsed hanging behind the right-hand lectern.
Jerome started out as a classic scholar but later he withdrew into the Syrian desert to practice renunciation of the world. Here he had befriended a lion by removing a thorn from its paw. He is usually shown as an old man with a cardinal's hat and accompanied by his loyal and thankful lion.
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