4Leonardo da Vinci’s St. Jerome: an enigmatic work

After Michelangelo and Raphael, the other protagonist of the triad of the mature Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, present in the collection of the Vatican Pinacoteca with the enigmatic S. Girolamo made around 1482 could certainly not be missing. The work, whose genesis is still shrouded in mystery, it has a daring story behind it. In fact, it appeared for the first time in the early 19th century in the will of the Swiss painter Angelica Kauffmann.

Then it was purchased by Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Napoleon’s uncle, who would have even found it divided into two parts, a legend that would be confirmed by the actual division of the painting into 5 parts. Then, after being auctioned numerous times, it was definitively purchased by Pope Pius IX for the Museums in 1856.

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