San Jerónimo en su estudio

Colantonio worked in Naples in the 1440s, at a court where the new Aragonese king was bringing Flemish pictures down from the north. You can see their effect here. A Neapolitan painter renders a scholar's study with the patient, near-tactile precision of a Netherlandish master: shelves crowded with books stacked flat and spine-out, letters and scrolls, an hourglass, scissors, a cardinal's red hat set on the table, and in the shadows below, mice nibbling fallen papers. Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, looks up from his desk to draw a thorn from the paw of a lion, the beast that legend says became his companion. The panel was once part of a larger altarpiece for the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore, later broken up.