St Jerome
by VITTORIA, Alessandro, Marble
In 1576 Vittoria was at work on the altar for the Scuola di S Fantin (now the Ateneo Veneto), Venice, the major element of which was the marble St Jerome (now Venice, SS Giovanni e Paolo); in September that year he fled to Vicenza to avoid the plague but completed the work after his return to Venice (by April 1577). This later St Jerome - kneeling and exhausted from his penances, a strong contrast with the heroic stance of the saint in the Frari altar - reveals an increasing pathos in Vittoria’s work, as well as a change in his sculptural technique to a less detailed, more astringent manner.