student at Bologna with the Caracci was Domenichino. Ile, too. was drawn to Rome quite early in his career, it was there that he was employed on three pictures on the life of St. Jerome for the church of S. Onofria. 'I he oihject of St. Jerome was to occupy an important place in Domenichino's life because. on a later painting of that saint, Domenichino's future reputation stands.
Domenichino's elegance and sorrectness of style. the pure grandeur of his conceptions, the noble architecture, the fine heads full of grace and beauty, the distinguished air about his secular as well as his religious work would have been vest likely disregarded and shelved as routine by posterity had it not been for one magnificent master
piece, the last Communion of St. Jerome, which the artist painted forthe altar of S. Girolamo della Carita. On its completion a jealous war immediately was declared. Domenichino was accused of copying a Caracei painting of the same subject at the Ccrtosa at Bologna. His name was cleared but the picture's obvious greatness in skill as well as in feeling. made it an object of envy.
The French considered it the finest picture in Rome after Raphael's transfiguration, and annexed it once for the Louvre, but had to return it later to Rome. The Last Communion is now no longer to he found on the altar for which it was painted, but on the walls of the Vatican gallery.
Ii is Conloy