Busts of Saints Jerome and Gregory

Description

March 28, 2009
The striking naturalism and powerful characterization of these busts endow them with a palpable presence, almost as if one stood before the saints themselves. Saint Jerome (about 340–420), who wrote the authoritative Latin translation of the Bible, is depicted as an introspective youth with a miniature lion—more charming than fierce—perched on his shoulder. At his side, the influential pope Gregory I (about 540–604) holds an open book and wears a papal tiara on his careworn brow. The pair of saints came from a large, spectacular altarpiece outfitted with doors and brimming with sculpture. Within this complex ensemble, Jerome and Gregory leaned out from the horizontal base of the altarpiece, known as a predella or Sarg, alongside similar busts of the sainted bishops Ambrose and Augustine. Together the four saints were known as the Doctors of the Church, since their writings provided a foundation for Christian theology and dogma in Western Europe.
The realism of such images made them potentially dangerous in the eyes of religious reformers. Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531), the zealous leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, decried the naturalism of religious art as a potential temptation to sin: “There stands a [Saint] Sebastian, a [Saint] Maurice and the gentle John the Evangelist, so cavalier, soldier-like and pimpish that the women have had to make confession about them.” Similar convictions led to the widespread destruction of religious imagery throughout German-speaking lands during the Reformation, which may explain why this engaging pair of saints is all that remains of what must have once been a much larger altarpiece.