Attributed to Giacomo Rocca

Painted on slate, a stone support much used in Rome around 1600, this small Saint Jerome kneels before a crucifix and strikes his chest with a stone, his lion, skull, book and cardinal's hat around him. In 1693 the Borghese believed it was by Sebastiano del Piombo, the Venetian painter who worked with Michelangelo. By 1790 it was Girolamo Muziano's, and by 1833 it had no name at all. Roberto Longhi, the Italian critic, suggested Giacomo Rocca in 1928, and the museum files it under him with attributed to, a considered case for his hand that stops short of proof.

Rocca was a Roman painter active from about 1575 to 1605 and a pupil of Daniele da Volterra, Michelangelo's close follower. Giovanni Baglione, a painter who published lives of Roman artists in 1642, recorded a comparable subject by Rocca on the altar of the Ceuli chapel in Santa Maria degli Angeli. Before it reached the Borghese, the slate belonged to Ortensia Santacroce, whose Roman inventory lists it in 1642.