Aqua Alta
Nancy Sever Gallery
July 30 - September 10, 2023
Vittorio didn’t say…
Like Jan Morris I too wonder why the monks of St. Jerome monastery in Carpaccio’s painting, ‘…run in comical terror from the mildest of all possible lions;’ Vittorio Carpaccio didn’t say - or if he did, his words are now lost and no commentary seems available on the painting St. Jerome and the Lion that, after hundreds of years, still remains as part of a narrative sequence of Carpaccio’s works in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. The painting depicts a teasingly enigmatic narration that leaves much to the imagination.
Jacobus de Voragine in his book Legenda Sanctorum (written in the late 13th century known as Golden Legend) recounts how St. Jerome removed the thorns from a limping lion’s paw and healed the wounds. The monks were terrified of the lion but Jerome treated it like a friend and guest. .........
<< READ FULL ESSAY/CATALOGUE >>
© Wilma Tabacco
JUNE 2023