Jerome of Santa Croce

JEROME OF SANTA CROCE. - Painter, b. probably around 1480, d. perhaps in July 1556. He is identifiable with that «Jerolimo, de maistro Bernardin, depentor» to whom Gentile Bellini left certain drawings in his will on 18 February 1507. Traces of this pupil of Gentile are discernible in the profile of a youth in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli.

He later moved to the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, and the influence of that master is indeed found in many of his works, such as the Sacred Conversation in Liverpool and the Madonna between St. Joseph, the Baptist and a Donor (signed Giovanni Bellini) in the Accademia in Turin. In other works, however, influences of Cima are found (St. Gregory and St. John the Evangelist in the National Gallery in London), while in 1542 he appears among the assistants of Lorenzo Lotto. Zanetti records very many of his paintings in Venetian churches: a Last Supper is in S. Francesco dalla Vigna, a Madonna with Monks and Saints at the Frari, Four Saints in S. Giovanni Crisostomo, a Coronation in S. Giuliano and a St. Thomas of Canterbury with the Baptist, and a St. Francis and Music-making Angels at S. Silvestro (1520). Other works, all executed with that eclecticism which betrays the manifold influences to which the painter was subject in his life, are found, besides in towns and cities of the Veneto, in very many collections in Italy and abroad.

Gilberto Ronci