Saint Jerome in Meditation

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, c. 1605

Oil on canvas, 118 × 81 cm

Museu de Montserrat, Montserrat

Room IV · The Last Years in Rome (1604–1606)

Saint Jerome in Meditation, Caravaggio, c. 1605 — Image: Wikimedia Commons, public domain

The old hermit who translated the Bible into Latin meditates on a skull, the emblem of the death that awaits everyone. It is one of Caravaggio's three surviving Saint Jeromes, and probably came from the Giustiniani collection.