The Last Communion of Saint Jerome
Botticelli
early 1490s
The Last Communion of Saint Jerome is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, finished around 1494–1495. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City.
The picture was inspired by the pseudepigraphical medieval Epistle of Eusebius to Damasus, also known as De morte Hieronymi. Rita Lizzi Testa writes, “The painting represents the very moment in which Jerome, having gathered his companions from the monastery around him, is lying on a linen sheet and is asking one of his brothers to bring him the body of Christ….The epistle recalls that when Jerome saw the priest come closer, he asked his companions to help him get to his knees, while professing his faith in Christ whose body and blood are present in the wafer.” No ancient author is known to have described this scene.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0 · Text: Wikipedia (adapted), CC BY-SA 4.0