St Jerome writing : from scroll to codex

Abstract

Caravaggio’s remaining personal tangible legacy in Malta consists of two paintings at St John’s Co-Cathedral, the Beheading of St John and St Jerome writing. On his way to Malta in 1607, Frà. Ippolito Malaspina, an acquaintance of his, was also present on board the vessel, and he would soon be commissioning Caravaggio to paint St Jerome Writing. This chapter is concerned with a small aspect of this painting (Fig. 1), namely the issue of what type of book or medium is Caravaggio making St Jerome use to entrust his writing to? Caravaggio preferred staged and contemporary settings, and therefore it seems that St Jerome is writing in a modern book as we know it, with paper pages and a parchment cover. Historically, that would not be quite correct. The question this chapter endeavours to answer is: what medium did St Jerome use to write his Vulgate bible, a normative work for so many centuries?