Saint Jerome in His Study

Antonello da Messina's Saint Jerome in His Study, painted around 1474-1475 and now in the National Gallery, London, is one of the most admired paintings of the Italian Renaissance. The tiny panel (45.7 x 36.2 cm) creates an astonishing illusion of space, with Jerome's study framed within a monumental stone arch through which a vast perspective recedes. The painting's combination of Flemish detail with Italian spatial ambition exemplifies Antonello's revolutionary synthesis of the two traditions.

Antonello creates an extraordinary spatial illusion through the stone arch framing device, using precise Netherlandish oil technique for the microscopic details of books, shelves, and floor tiles while the Italian perspectival construction generates a vast, coherent interior space.