Saint Jerome: A Mirror of Late Medieval Devotion

This paper focuses on the representation of St Jerome in the Zadar Polyptych, painted by Vittore Carpaccio around 1496 and commissioned by Martin Mladošić. Approaching it as a commission and offering made by a pious canon of Zadar’s cathedral church, the scene has been analyzed in the context of spiritual changes that occurred during this period, through the prism of personal and Christocentric piety. This paper brings new interpretations of the depiction, seeing it as an expression of the commissioner’s meditative vision, to whom the saint served as a model of pious Christian life and the embodiment of the imitatio Christi ideal. Even though St Jerome was already venerated as a patron saint of Dalmatia, this paper underlines the self-identification of the Zadar canon with the saint, expressed through moral and spiritual virtues, as the main motivation behind the commission. Interpreting the work as an expression of the popular Renaissance cult of St Jerome during the Late Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early Modern Period, it emphasizes the involvement of Zadar’s cultural circle in the pan-European spiritual, artistic, intellectual, and cultural currents of the era.

While a number of such chapels are still preserved in situ, many of the original elements of their furnishing have been lost or relocated due to the remodeling of these sacral spaces over the centuries.
This refers especially to the lavish altarpieces that are preserved and exhibited in museums and galleries all over the world. The displacement of such artworks from the original buildings that they were made for presents the main obstacle in the study of their initial function and of the development of different forms of altarpieces. Moreover, such detachment of an artwork from its original space has prevented and still prevents researchers from fully understanding the way these artworks contributed to the experience of the physical and liturgical spaces in which they resided. Furthermore, these displacements present an obstacle to comprehending how they communicated with the observers during the liturgical service or private prayer in front of them. 2 However, during the past few decades, a significant shift has been made by researchers, mainly art historians, who started to question the function of these altarpieces: not only their stylistic characteristics, but also the nature of communication between the artworks and the observers, trying to understand the possible emotional reactions to such visual stimuli.
This way, a number of new conclusions have been made about the function of altars and their equipment beyond their primary liturgical function. Researchers have begun to place greater emphasis on the analysis of the content and context of depictions in altarpieces, approaching them as historical evidence of the cultural, artistic, social, and political characteristics of the time in which they originated. 3 Following the same approach, that the artwork "speaks" beyond the image, this paper focuses on a masterpiece of Early Renaissance Venetian painting, the Zadar Polyptych (c. 1496) commissioned by Martin Mladošić (? -c. 1504/1505), a canon of the Zadar cathedral, and painted by the Venetian artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1465 -c. 1526). 4 (Fig. 1) The Zadar Polyptych has suffered the same fate as many other similar artworks: it is no longer preserved in its entirety or in its original position. The six panels, without a corresponding frame and predella, are shown today as part of the Permanent Exhibition of Sacral Art (SICU) in Zadar. 5 The undisputable Zadar provenance of this piece is clinched by the depiction of the local patron saints on the side panels: St Anastasia -the titular saint of the cathedral church, St Simeon -one of the patron saints of Zadar, St Peter -the earlier titular of the cathedral church, and St Paul, who was, together with St Peter, especially venerated in the cathedral church of Saint Anastasia. The depiction of St Martin on horseback giving his cloak to a poor man in the central panel of the lower register reflects the common function of the altarpiece, which is to identify the saintly dedication of the altar on which it once stood. 6 The altar dedicated to St Martin was erected in the cathedral church in 1480 under the patronage of none other than Martin Mladošić himself. The practice of depicting locally venerated saints and the commissioner's personal patron saint -in this case his namesake -had become a universally common votive practice by the fifteenth century. The piece would stand as a standard example of this type of practice were it not for the fact that the central panel of the upper register shows St Jerome kneeling in front of the crucifix in the desert landscape, joined by the figure of the commissioner rather than St Martin. (Fig. 2) It is indeed unusual that the commissioner did not decide to place his portrait along with the saint to whom the altar was dedicated, but instead chose St Jerome as the one with whose moral and pious virtues he identified.
Did such an act have a symbolic meaning, or was this solution conditioned by the lack of space on the panel depicting St Martin, where -respecting the linear composition and harmony of the scene -there was no room to accommodate the commissioner? Analyzing the iconographic and compositional features of the panel depicting St Jerome and the commissioner, this paper brings new conclusions as to its content, broadens our knowledge of the veneration of the saint in Zadar, reconstructs the personal piety of Martin Mladošić, and questions the function of the altarpiece. Additionally, it outlines the spiritual and cultural changes that occurred in the circle where the canon was active -as a member of the Zadar cathedral chapter -and enriches the existing discussion on the connections between Zadar and the leading Venetian painters of the day. 7

The Polyptych as Vittore Carpaccio's painting and Martin Mladošić's commission
The Zadar Polyptych has been noted and discussed among scholars for a long time, mainly for being one of the earliest signed works by the painter Carpaccio, and because it was, unusually for most of his Venetian production, made for a commissioner outside Venice. Although the commission is still undocumented, it represents an important, but still not completely determined point in the early development of the painter's career. Given the lack of archival sources that could bring to light the conditions and circumstances of this unusual commission, the main preoccupation of researchers has been the date of its execution, which has resulted in a wide range of hypotheses: 8 from the year 1480, when Mladošić consecrated the altar, to 1487, the year that is found inscribed on his tombstone in front of the altar, and finally 1496, when the canon compiled his last will. 9 For now, the testament is the only document that possibly references the altarpiece. It mentions a payment of 32 ducats to the woodcarver Ivan Petrov from the island of Korčula, intended for work on an altarpiece for the altar of St Martin, whose execution was obviously in the progress, since only one part of the payment was to be delivered. Petricioli assumes that it is more probable that Ivan from Korčula made the frame for the already finished Carpaccio panels than that he started a carved altarpiece, since his carved figural compositions are not known. 10 The Croatian scholarship takes the year 1493 as an arbitrary year of execution, following Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski's observations. However, he did not specify how he came to this conclusion. 11 If we accept the interpretation by Ivo Petricioli, that the mention of the altarpiece in the testament refers to the frame rather than some other carved altarpiece -since the mentioned carver mostly produced furniture, and not figural compositions -the most accurate dating of the work would be around 1496, bearing in mind that the panels had already been painted at the time the frame was made. This dating to the early 1490s is supported by another of Petricioli's observations. Identical Carpaccio's signature written in cursive -the word Venetiis written as Venettj -is found on two other works dated to the last decade of the 15 th century: The Blood of the Redeemer from Udine, dated and signed in 1496, and The Meditation on the Passion (Fig. 3), today in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. 12 However, the question of dating is not the central preoccupation of this paper.
The formation of Vittore Carpaccio in the painting workshop of Gentile Bellini (1429-1507) or Lazzaro Bastiani (1429-1512), and the influence of Early Renaissance Venetian painters such as Giovanni Bellini (c.1431-1516), Antonello da Messina (1430-1479), and Cima da Conegliano (1459-1517) is still being discussed by scholars. 13 It is certain that Carpaccio's establishment on the Venetian artistic scene began after the execution of the narrative cycle for the Scuola di San Orsola (1490-1495), followed by the cycle of patron saints in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni (1502-1508). Rich and harmonious compositions with many characters and details, a sense for depicting architectural space and landscape, as well as translating the humanist and spiritual ideas of the time into artistic anecdotes, secured him an important place in the development of Venetian Renaissance painting. The Zadar Polyptych stands out because it was created before his most famous works, and for a commissioner living far from Venice. Even though Carpaccio symbolically con-nected himself with the Croatian lands through the execution of the cycle in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, the commission of the Zadar Polyptych occurred almost a decade earlier.
To understand why Carpaccio was entrusted with this commission and how it reflects the commissioner's devotion, it is important to apply a different approach to the work. Contrary to previous scholarship, which has primarily observed the altarpiece as Carpaccio's early production, in this paper I am approaching it as a commission by Martin Mladošić. Although the discussion about the full scope of the activities of this cathedral canon remains for a future research of the archival material, the data published so far shows that he was an active participant in the ecclesiastical, social, and cultural life of Zadar until his death. Between 1464 and 1485, he acted as a public notary, and from 1474 he began to sign his name as a member of the cathedral chapter in Zadar. In the earlier documents, he is mentioned as the archpresbyter of the Nin Cathedral. Considering that he received a privilege to dedicate a private altar in the cathedral church of Zadar, one can assume that after moving to Zadar, he obtained a high rank among the canons of the cathedral. This is further supported by a document from 1504, where it is mentioned that Martin Mladošić, together with Stefano de Cortesiis, acted as vicar general of the Archbishopric of Zadar dur-

St Jerome in the desert: Problems with interpretation
In the catalog of the exhibition The Great Masters of the Renaissance, Radoslav Tomić summarizes the earlier iconographic interpretations related to the scene of St Jerome in the desert in the polyptych, agreeing that the depicted saint is indeed one of the Church fathers, but underlining that "there are no arguments that the painting really depicts St Jerome, and not St Paul the Hermit, since the saint is not wearing red clothes or a cardinal's hat. He has no stone in his hand, nor does a lion accompany him. " 15 The seeds of doubt related to the identification of the depicted saint were sown by Mate Karaman, Archbishop of Zadar (1700-1771), who misinterpreted the figure as St Paul the Hermit. 16 His mistake was first corrected by the Italian art historian Antonio Morassi, who correctly identified the saint as Jerome. 17 Tomić correctly noted that until his work, no detailed analysis which confirmed that this was indeed a depiction of the Church father and famous ascetic born in Dalmatia had been published. The argument was based on the general understanding of Jerome as the patron saint of Dalmatia during the 15 th century, which subsequently led to the interpretation of this depiction as an expression of identification with the saint based on a common origin. 18 As further discussion in this text will show, the unquestioned historiographical understanding of Jerome's character only as the patron saint of Dalmatia has led to an incomplete interpretation not only of the example discussed here, but also of many other artistic expressions of his veneration in the Eastern Adriatic. During the Late Middle Ages, St Jerome was revered throughout Europe, including the Eastern Adriatic -regardless of the regional particularities of the cult -as a Church father, a pious intellectual, and a renowned ascetic. For that reason, his growing popularity in this area during the 15 th century should not be seen as isolated from the popular cult that took root across the European continent during the period discussed. Jerome was appropriated in numerous contexts of veneration, from theological debates to humanism to church and secular reform movements. The stratification of his character as a Church father, a pious intellectual, a confessor of faith, and an ascetic was accompanied by a rich and iconographically diverse artistic production. 19 Therefore, the Zadar Panel with St Jerome should be viewed in parallel with other depictions of the saint created in that period, in the geographical area from which the artistic impulses came to the Eastern Adriatic. While Mladošić's deep devotion to the saint may have been motivated by a belief in the special protection Jerome provided to his compatriots, it was not necessarily the sole reason for this commission.

St Jerome and popular piety
As early as 1400, the iconographic type of St Jerome as a penitent was established in Tuscan painting, forged in the spiritual atmosphere defined by the growing reform movements of the monastic orders and by the numerous lay congregations that promoted devoted practices outside the institutionalized framework of the Church. 20 Among the Tuscans, Jerome was established as an imitative model of pious Christian life. For that reason, the depictions of the saint hitting his chest with a stone in penitential ecstasy became the most popular expression of his artistic representation. 21 (Fig. 4) Changes in spiritual veneration during the Late Middle Ages, characterized primarily by an increased emphasis on personal spiritual experience through daily meditative prayer, created fertile ground for the transformation of Jerome's image as a Church father and intellectual into a model of a penitential living. 22 Intimacy and affective devotion, accompanied by mystical experiences and visions, became a precondition for salvation and instead of the monastery or convent, personal spaces became a place of spiritual progress. 23 Reform movements, such as the Franciscan Observant reform or the lay movement devotio moderna, which had begun to bloom in Northern Europe in the late 14 th century, also gave great impetus to the spread of personal piety. 24 The abundance and variety of pious practices that flourished in the fifteenth century should be viewed as the culmination of already existing medieval traditions that focused on inner sensory experience. 25 Christocentric devotion, in which the emphasis was on Christ's bodily suffering as an expression of his incarnation, became the spiritual backbone of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods. The greatest incentive for the spread of such ideas during the 15 th and 16 th centuries was the prayer manual Imitatio Christi, compiled in 1418 by Thomas a Kempis (c. 1380-1471), a member of the devotio moderna movement. 26 Nevertheless, his work should be considered only as a codification of already existing practices which had their origins in one of the most famous works of pious literature of the Late Middle Ages: Meditationes vitae Christi, written in the 14 th century. 27 In addition to being one of the pillars of Franciscan piety, this prayer manual informed most spiritual experiences during the Middle Ages and served as a textual model for the pictorial depictions of Christ's Passion and Mary's pain. The text was written as a guide for the meditative, effective, and participatory prayer of nuns, where contemplative reflection was based on the relationship between the text and the visual representations in the margins, requiring the imaginative and visual participation of the reader. The mental recreation of the sacred scene, in which the reader was encouraged to "see" it as if its protagonists were personally present, had the purpose of provoking an emotional reaction and compassion for Christ's suffering. 28 Therefore, already during the 14 th century, the so-called Andachtsbilderisolated motifs of Christ's Passion such as the arma Christi, Pietà, or Ecce homostarted to appear in the German lands, intended for personal affective piety. 29 Geert Groote, the founder of devotio moderna, explained in his work De quattuor generibus meditabilium (1381-1383) how individuals could use various devices during prayer to deepen the spiritual experience: by focusing on the life and suffering of Jesus Christ, on what was revealed to the saints about Christ, on theological and devotional material, and on visual depictions of Christ's life and suffering. 30 One finds similar thoughts among the leading ecclesiastical authorities in Venice. Ludovico Barbo (1381-1443), abbot of the Benedictine Congregation of St Giustina in Padua and an early supporter of the ideas of the devotio moderna movement, wrote a personal prayer manual for the monks of his congregation titled Forma orationis et meditationis (c. 1440). It provides instructions for progressive levels of prayer with the use of visual aids, eliciting an intense emotional response. Barbo called this ability, which allowed an individual to imagine themselves present in the scene over which they meditated, the "facoltà immaginativa. " 31 During this period, the saints, as already established mediators, started to gain more importance in popular piety. Particularly appealing were those who had carried out their penance by suffering in the desert, like St Mary Magdalene or St Jerome, whose depictions were among the most numerous in Venetian homes. 32 The abundance of depictions of Jerome the Penitent suggests that, like the illustrations of Christ's Passion, the visual depictions of saints also took on a functional role during the prayer process, visually complementing the written descriptions found in devotional literature. 33 The adoption of Jerome as the patron saint of educated humanists and intellectuals certainly contributed to the spread of his cult in this period, but it was the penitential element in his holiness that provided the foundations for his popular cult.
While identification with Jerome on the intellectual level was reserved for narrow groups of educated humanists, every pious individual could find encouragement in him for their own repentance of sins. One should recall that the sacrament of penance, both physical and spiritual, was "a centerpiece of late medieval church piety, " equally rooted in the official Church and in personal devotion. 34 This emblematic position that Jerome had in the new spiritual currents of the period is reflected best in the foundation of lay congregations following Jerome's life by practicing poverty, helping the sick and the poor, engaging in meditative prayer and firm discipline and, above all, in acts of penance such as flagellation. As early as 1355, Giovanni Colombini, a cloth merchant, founded the lay congregation of Frati Gesuati di San Girolamo in Siena, 35 while Carlo Montegranelli, a Florentine patrician, founded the Congregazione degli eremiti di S. Girolamo a Fiesole in 1377. 36 Even though it is a topic unto itself, it must be pointed out that the motif of Jerome as a Penitent was also highly promoted by the Franciscan order. The spiritual relation between St Jerome and St Francis is best seen in the well-known Franciscan motto nudus nudum Christum sequi emphasizing the importance of accepting Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, whose origins are to be found in Jerome's letters, represented by Jerome's retreat into the desert and Francis's life in poverty. 37 It is not a coincidence that the two saints were depicted paired in many artworks of Franciscan provenance. Accepting the life of Christ, following him in poverty, and practicing a life of penance were rewarded with a vision of the crucified Christ. It was Francis on the mount La Verna in the moment of stigmatization, and Jerome in the desert during fervent prayer. 38

St Jerome reading in the desert: New iconographic concepts
With the spread of hagiographic material through the printed medium, and the intertwining of these traditions of veneration, iconographic types depicting St Jerome started to transform by simplifying the existing types or forming new ones based on the written hagiographical models. This is especially evident in Venetian painting, where around mid-15 th century, Giovanni Bellini and Andrea Mantegna started to promote the territorially specific iconographic type of Saint Jerome Reading in the Desert. Unlike the penitent type, in this model Jerome is shown reading in the solitude of a desert. (Figs. 5, 6, and 7) Hans Belting noticed the emphasized contrast between the desert where Jerome resided and the city in the background. He explained the emergence of this type as a product of spiritual and intellectual changes in Venice. It was intended for the "urban collectors" who, through this artistic composition, reflected on the humanistic ideal of longing for solitude, both physical and spiritual, as a place of spiritual and intellectual progress. 39 With the further development of the type among the Venetian painters such as Alvise Vivarini, Lorenzo Lotto, and Vittore Carpaccio, the desert environment, the saint hermit's clothing as well as his long gray beard, became transposed attributes of the depiction of St Jerome in the Desert. 40 As an ever-present attribute, we meet Jerome's faithful companion the lion, which, contrary to Tomić's observations, is also found in the Zadar Polyptych, to the left of the saint, in the company of a hind. Even a cursory glance at the Venetian artistic production indicates that Carpaccio's depiction should be viewed in the context of the development of the aforementioned iconographic type of Saint Jerome Reading in the Desert, which is especially evident in the styling borrowed from Giovanni Bellini's paintings, seen in the formation of a rocky environment and the meditative, almost mystical poetics of the scene. 41 However, the iconography of the panel in the Zadar Polyptych represents neither a meditative saint reading in the desert, nor a saint in penitential ecstasy. Jerome is depicted naked to the waist, kneeling before a crucifix which is modeled as a branch growing out of a tree stump. 42 Unlike the canonical depiction of Jerome's penitential act, where he is shown with a stone in his hand, hitting his chest in penitential fervor, Carpaccio portrayed Jerome with his hands folded in an act of serene prayer. Still, by placing a stone on the ground in front of the saint, the painter made a clear association to the penitent element of Jerome's sanctity. These elements are not the only ones which testify to the unconventional composition of the Zadar panel. The unconventionality of the scene is also seen in the lack of the standard attributes of the saint, such as the cardinal's galero. Even more unusual is the presence of the commissioner in such an intimate scene, in which Jerome is usually depicted alone. Which scene does this panel represent then if not Jerome the Penitent or Jerome Reading in the Desert? Does it perhaps illustrate some particular scene of Jerome's sojourn in the wilderness described in his letters that did not establish itself as a standard in Jerome's iconography?

Jerome's vision of Christ
Among the numerous letters that Jerome exchanged with his friends and followers, the most famous one is certainly that sent in 384 to his disciple Eustochium (Epistle XXII). This is due to its content, in which he defends virginity as a form of imitatio Christi. The letter was perceived as a manifesto of Jerome's ascetic doctrine. In it, he describes the events during his first retreat after 375, when he spent two years in the Chalcis desert fasting on food and water, tormenting his body under the strong sun, which caused him to become delirious and imagine seeing Roman girls dancing, which led him to fall into lust. Obsessed with the guilt of this sin, he repeatedly struck a stone against his chest: "I am not ashamed to confess my misery and misfortune, but I weep that I am not what I was. " 43 The importance of this epistle is not only that it stands as the foundation for the artistic representation of Jerome the Penitent, but also that it serves as the core of the devotional literature on the saint that circulated during the Late Middle Ages, shaping the image of Jerome significantly away from his historical figure. The foundational text of this devotional literature was the work Vita et Transitus Sancti Hieronymi, which grouped three apocryphal letters attributed to Pseudo-Augustine, Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem, and Pseudo-Eusebius of Cremona together with a short life of Jerome, prayers, and hymns. 44 Another popular, but apocryphal devotional work was the Regula Monacharum compilation, based on excerpts from the mentioned Epistle XXII. Reading the above-mentioned letter to Eustochium, one finds descriptions that strikingly resemble a scene from the Zadar Polyptych: "Wherever I saw hollow valleys, craggy mountains, steep cliffs, there I made my oratory, there the house of correction for my unhappy flesh. There, also -the Lord Himself is my witness -when I had shed copious tears and had strained my eyes towards heaven, I sometimes felt myself among angelic hosts, and for joy and gladness sang: 'because of the savour of thy good ointments we will run after thee' . " 45 By reading between the lines, it becomes clear that Jerome explains how his humble act of following Christ, through the repentance of sins and the acceptance of corporal punishment, was rewarded with a vision of Christ during which he enjoyed the grace of God surrounded by an angelic choir. Already during his life, he had the opportunity to witness heavenly serenity and contentment like other saints and blessed ones. This privilege to see Christ is also subtly indicated in the numerous depictions of the saint in the desert, where the crucifix is placed in a manner so that the crucified body of Christ is fully visible only to the saint and not to the observer of the image.
While this scene is rare, it is not the only one emphasizing this particular and often unnoted episode from Jerome's retreat into the desert. Around the mid-15 th century, Andrea del Castagno made a fresco in the Florentine Church of Santissima Annunziata (1453-1454) (Fig. 8), near which the seat of the flagellant fraternity of Buca di San Girolamo was located. Although no link has yet been found between the commissioner of the fresco, Girolamo Corboli, and the fraternity, most researchers agree that the choice of theme was linked to the growing flagellant movement in Florence. Jerome is depicted as a penitent with a stone in his hand, in the company of Eustochium and her mother Paula, with their eyes fixed on the Holy Trinity that watches over them. Same as in the Zadar panel, the Florentine fresco depicts the moment of grace, an outcome of the penitential act. The witnesses are present in both scenes: Paula and Eustochium in the fresco, and the donor on the panel. However, a significant difference can be observed. While in Zadar Jerome focuses his gaze on the crucified Christ, in Florence the Holy Trinity watches over him. The idea behind these two representations is the same -to portray Jerome's holy vision -but the textual model from which they drew their inspiration is different.
Carpaccio's composition was based on a direct translation of the letter to Eustochium into a visual representation, while the one by Andrea del Castagno refers to the text of the Regula Monacharum, in which the witness of Jerome's vision was not Christ, but the Holy Trinity. 46 The intertwining of the textual template and the visual representation in both cases sends a strong message to the viewer who, while watching the scene, evokes the text of the famous letter. The viewer perceives that by following Jerome's example of ascetic life and renunciation of material goods, confessing their sins and accepting penance, everyone can know Christ in the same way and enjoy his grace. 47  In the painting The Holy Family (c. 1505) (Fig. 9), the donors are shown as an integral part of the sacred scene, with a great deal of individuality. They are a married couple, dressed in expensive fabrics decorated with ermine fur to express their social status. The clothing in which Martin Mladošić was dressed also reflected his social and ecclesiastical status. A fur stole over a white alba, worn on his left shoulderin a manner usual for deacons -shows that even after joining the Zadar cathedral chapter, he held a high position. (Fig. 10) By individualizing the donor's facial characteristics, the commemorative role of the portrait was even more emphasized. Thus, the portrait became a long-term reminder of Mladošić's piety and mercy, encouraging those who prayed at the altar to recommend him in their prayers.
However, it is still not clear why Carpaccio executed Mladošić's wish to be portrayed along with St Jerome? The answer can be found by viewing the composition as a whole. Daniel Russo has already noticed the compositional particularities, underlining the symbolic meaning of the diagonal axis on which Carpaccio placed the figures, applying the linear perspective and proportional placement of figures. 49  ally, by placing the donor's figure in front of the saint, the relationship between the donor and the saint was illustrated. It clearly shows that for Mladošić, Jerome was the one whose example of following Christ was worthy of imitation. The delicacy of the scene and the clear personal accent on the commissioner shows that Mladošić was directly involved in planning the content of the Polyptych.

A mystical vision of Martin Mladošić
Why did the Zadar canon decide to immortalize his figure in such a compositionally and iconographically unique scene? The first part of the answer lies in the previously described spiritual atmosphere of the period; the second, in the possible personal practices of venerating the saint. The canon's humanist inclinations, which I will discuss later in this text, let us assume that he actively read Jerome's works and devotional literature about him, such as descriptions of his life, and meditated over his epistles.
It is difficult not to see the reflections of the theology of popular piety, which emphasized participatory and affective prayer, in the presence of the donor in this scene, who observes from the outskirts, as if from the audience, what is happening on the stage in front of him. Therefore, I propose that the whole scene should be interpreted from the perspective of personal devotion, which among other things advocated participatory prayer, where a person would imagine himself being present in the scene he meditated upon. For that reason, this composition should be interpreted as an artistic translation of Mladošić's "facoltà immaginativa, " resulting from his deep piety and a good knowledge of the said letter to Eustochium, which he could use in his daily prayer as well as in acts of penance. This way he also equated his learning and spirituality with that of the saint, as did many other individuals during the Renaissance who accepted Jerome as their personal patron saint. The emphasis on this personal connection between the depicted saint and the commissioner in this altarpiece indicates that the altar, on which the canon had the right to serve the Mass, was also a place of his private prayer.
Following this line of conclusion, the altarpiece would have had a double function, serving as the place where the liturgy was performed as well as a mnemonic apparatus during the canon's prayer, fostering his imaginative vision as he served the Mass at the altar, but also to all the other people who prayed in front of it. Thus, the altar became a place of personal private prayer, while the altarpiece acted as a means of facilitating communication with the divine. The question on who had access to the altar is still to be researched in future, since its original placement in the cathedral still cannot be identified with certainty. The preserved tombstone of Martin Mladošić, which once stood in front of the altar, has been moved over the years.
Although unique in its content, the Zadar example is not the only one that highlights Jerome as a personal patron and guide in the spiritual progress of an individual in which the analogy between Jerome and Christ is drawn in a similar way as that here discussed. As early as the mid-15 th century, Piero della Francesca painted his St Jerome and a Supplicant. 50 (Fig. 12) Here, Jerome is depicted as a hermit, sitting on a bench surrounded by books, holding one open in his hands. The supplicant, dressed in the crimson attire, is kneeling in the posture of prayer in front of the saint, while a crucifix is shown growing from a cut tree. 51 Like in the later Venetian examples depicting Saint Jerome in the desert, the contrast between the desert in the foreground and the city in the background has been emphasized. Other similarities between this and the Zadar example are notable: the donor's figure is incorporated into the sacred scene, his gaze is directed towards the saint and not the crucified Christ, and the whole scene is devoid of the ecstatic atmosphere found in depictions of penitent St Jerome. Both scenes represent Jerome as the one who teaches the best how to follow Christ by contemplating his sacrifice. While Carpaccio achieves this through the refined composition of the scene, Piero della Francesca literally paints the moment in which Jerome teaches the supplicant how to suffer bodily penance in compassion for Christ's suffering, in front of the most powerful symbol of salvation through repentance -the crucifix. 52 Carpaccio's transfer of textual templates into artistic anecdotes is evident in his many historias. A good knowledge of the spiritual currents is seen in his other early works that emphasize Christ's passion as an expression of his human incarnation, such as the aforementioned Blood of the Redeemer and Meditation on the Passion. 53 The abundance of symbolic representations, motifs, and inscriptions in the Meditation on the Passion, depicting St Jerome and the Old Testament prophet Job sitting pensively in front of the dead Christ on a throne, suggests that the function of this painting should be viewed in a similar vein as the Zadar panel of St Jerome, in the context of popular Christocentric piety. (Fig. 3) It was certainly not difficult for Carpaccio to translate the wishes of the commissioner into the language of art, since he was already known to be one of the most educated and well-read Venetian masters with a clear interest in humanist studies. He obviously knew very well the devotional literature dedicated to St Jerome, which is manifested in his unique treatment of the apparition of Jerome's soul to St Augustine in the Confraternity of the Schiavoni in Venice. 54 While it is clear that the commissioner, Mladošić, contributed to the development of the theological concept of the work, and we can assume that he personally discussed this with the painter when ordering the work in Venice, the question of influence is justified here. Was deep devotion to St Jerome an expression of the Venetian cultural and spiritual environment transmitted through the painter, or was it an expression of strong reverence for St Jerome in the Zadar Cathedral where the canon was primarily active?

Zadar's cathedral chapter, humanism, and St Jerome
With the appointment of Maffeo Valaresso as the Archbishop of Zadar (1450-1494), a humanist circle began to form around the cathedral chapter. Due to his long episcopate, revival of interest in the ancient history of the city, humanist studies, and the implementation of a new visual language of the Renaissance, he is considered one of the most deserving individuals for spreading the Renaissance in the largest city of Venetian Dalmatia. 55 The frontrunners of this intellectual revival were the canons of the cathedral chapter. Thus, Jeronim Vidulić (c. 1440-1499) is remembered as a humanist and a poet. The activities of Matej Sturčić are still to be researched, but his tombstone, attributed to Niccolò di Giovanni Fiorentino and preserved in the church he served, 56 testifies to his humanist inclinations: not only for commissioning one of the best artists in Dalmatia at the time, but also for the inscription on the tombstone, written in the Latin language in Roman capital script. Mladošić's humanist interests are also evidenced by his seal, i.e. the coat of arms, which was made of an ancient gem depicting a fox. 57 Despite the lack of material reminders of the activities of members of this circle that would testify today to their understanding of the intellectual and cultural currents identical to those on the other side of the Adriatic, the archival data show that they were active participants in the cultural and intellectual life of Zadar and beyond. Archival records show that other members of the cathedral chapter were equally attached to St Jerome, and that the identification of Martin Mladošić stemmed from the developed form of veneration among the Zadar clergy. The possession of the Vita et transitus Sancti Hieronymi among the members of the chapter is mentioned several times in the sources. Canon Simon, in his last will drawn up in 1467, left his manuscript copy of the work to Priest Nikola. 58 Andrija Bribiranin, in his last will written in 1490, stated that the copy of the Vita et transitus Sancti Hieronymi he had borrowed from Mauro de Grisogonis should be returned to the original owner upon his death. 59 The only surviving Latin copy of Dalmatian provenance of this work is found in the Bridwell MS5 manuscript, transcribed by Chrysogonus (Krševan) de Nassis in 1469, which contains three texts: Pseudo-Eusebius's epistle De morte Sancti Hieronymi, The Life of St Jerome by Niccolò Maniacoria, and De admonitione ad comitem Aurelianum by Paulinus of Aquileia, mistakenly attributed to Augustine in the manuscript. 60 Future research will determine whether the mentioned Proctor of the Cathedral Church, Chrysogonus de Nassis, and the signed Chrysogonus are the same person. In such an environment, where Jerome was certainly celebrated also for his Dalmatian origin, it is not surprising that Archbishop Valaresso himself was an admirer of Jerome's character and work. Among the figures that adorned his episcopal staff made in 1460, in addition to the saints traditionally celebrated in Zadar -similarly to the saints of the side panels of the Zadar Polyptych -there is also St Jerome, the patron saint of Dalmatia as a whole. 61

Martin Mladošić and Vittore Carpaccio
Martin Mladošić's act of commission certainly is one of the most representative examples of votive commissions in the Eastern Adriatic, but it is not the only one. It is known that the Venetian artistic trends of that time were known in Zadar, which can be seen in the painting Our Lady of Mercy by Lazzaro Bastiani, Carpaccio's collaborator and a possible teacher, today exhibited in the sacristy of the church of St Francis in Zadar. 62 (Fig. 13) I am mentioning it here because of the similar enigmatic status it has in present-day scholarship, similar to Carpaccio's Zadar Polyptych. The reason for this lies in the lack of documentary evidence on its commission and original placement, together with the possible path of commission by some prominent citizen(s) of Zadar. The unusual composition represents the sacred scene in three registers. In the middle is a depiction of a church, with a large number of male figures on the left and female figures on the right grouped in front of it. The whole scene is overseen by the Virgin Mary in a mandorla, holding the Child in her arms and surrounded by a saintly choir, among which we can identify also St Jerome kneeling on the left, right below the Virgin. Recent research by Ivana Prijatelj Pavičić and Ivan Jurković has offered new interpretations and possible identifications of numerous important historical figures from the period, active in joint European anti-Ottoman efforts, including Pope Julius II and the Venetian Cardinal Marco Barbaro, the only two figures painted en-face. 63 I am mentioning this painting here in correlation with Carapaccio's for several reasons. The first one relates to the receptiveness of Zadar's cultural elites to the artistic trends in Venice, from where the impulses of cultural production easily reached the Eastern Adriatic. The second shows the peculiar taste and wishes of the local commissioners, which in both cases is reflected in unique pictorial representations, with evidently strong symbolic meanings embedded in the artistic motifs and representations of individuals. While they indeed serve as material evidence of the inclusion of Zadar elites in the broader cultural and political currents of Europe at the time, they also raise the question of the creative freedom of renowned Venetian artists in commissions intended for churches and altars far from the rigorous and competitive Venetian market of the period. However, this question must remain open for another study.
The last point relates to the connection between Lazarro Bastiani and Vittore Carpaccio. Even though it would be tempting to correlate the commission of two Renaissance masterpieces in Zadar by two artists whom we know worked closely together, for example on the narrative panels of the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista (1494-1496), for now there is no evidence that these two paintings were the result of some agreement between the commissioners in Zadar and the painters in Venice. 64 Still, the influence of Lazzaro Bastiani in Carpaccio's paintings, already noted by scholars, can also be read in the Zadar panel of St Jerome. Carpaccio's innovative composition in Zadar stems from the compositions of his older colleague. Carpaccio's narrative cycle in the Confraternity of the Schiavoni, especially his Death of St Jerome, follows Bastiani's compositions executed for the Venetian Scuola di San Girolamo, part of a cycle he painted after becoming its member in 1470. 65 The citations of Bastiani's work found in the Zadar panel of St Jerome do not come from this cycle, but from the altarpiece he painted in 1485 for the cathedral of Asolo. One of the predella scenes shows Saint Jerome in the Desert, where the saint is shown in a barren desert setting. In the scene, Jerome is kneeling in front of the crucifix with a stone in his hand, with an opened book on the ground. Out of the standard attributes, only the lion is present. These elements, combined with the compositional relationship between the saint and the crucifix, show that Carpaccio was well acquainted with Bastiani's solutions. 66 (Fig. 14) There is another concept that Carpaccio could have borrowed from Bastiani, that of depicting the donor alongside St Jerome, or depicting Jerome teaching how to contemplate the passion of the Christ. It is believed that during the late 1470s, the physician Saladino Ferro commissioned in Venice an altarpiece for his private chapel dedicated to St Jerome in the city cathedral at Monopoli in Apulia. 67 (Fig. 15) Unlike Carpaccio's and Piero della Francesca's paintings, Jerome is depicted in his cardinal's attire, sitting at a desk in his study room, surrounded by books and other objects, including a crucifix in the center of the upper part of the composition, overseeing the scene. The donor is in the lower right corner, dressed in rich clothes, kneeling in front of the saint and focusing his gaze on the open book from which Jerome is reading. The common points between the paintings discussed here show the need for additional exploration of similar depictions of St Jerome and donors in order to be able to discuss further the possible particularities of this rare iconographic type.
Still, this does not answer how Mladošić contacted or possibly met Carpaccio to order his depiction. Who was the mediator between the commissioner from Zadar and the painter from Venice? Although confirmation in written documents has not yet been uncovered, researchers have already suggested the Bishop of Zadar, Maffeo Valaresso, as a possible mediator in Mladošić's order. During the 15 th century, the Venetian family of Valaresso was closely connected to the Eastern Adriatic through its members who performed numerous administrative and ecclesiastical services in Venetian Dalmatia. 68 Due to the legend preserved in the family that they originated from Salona, the ancient capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia, they became patrons of the Schiavoni confraternity Scuola di San Giorgio in Venice, to which the Admiral of the Venetian navy, Paolo Valaresso, donated a relic of St George in 1502. 69 In the same year, the confraternity was granted an indulgence for the feasts of its patron saints -George, Tryphon, and Jerome -which mentions the renovation of the building. The commission of Carpaccio's narrative cycle, mostly likely funded by the family, was a part of these renovation works. 70 Maffeo Valaresso was related to the aforementioned admiral, who hired Carpaccio to paint the cycle. Although Archbishop Valaresso died in 1494, at the time of the creation of the Zadar Polyptych, due to his personal and ecclesiastical acquaintances he seems to be a logical link between the client and the painter. Patricia Fortini Brown has suggested an iconographic reading of the cycle in the confraternity as homage to the Valaresso family -Augusto Gentili, however, disagrees with this interpretation -citing another possible link between the painter and the family, the fact that they all lived in the Venetian sestiere of Dorsoduro, in the parish of Sant' Angelo Raffaele. 71 If the family was truly acquainted with Carpaccio's work from the early days of his career, then it is very possible that the archbishop recommended the young Venetian painter to execute a polyptych in the cathedral church in which he was a bishop, before Carpaccio distinguished himself on the painting scene with his narrative opuses for Venetian confraternities.

Conclusion
An analytical assessment of the depiction of St Jerome and the donor in the Zadar Polyptych shows the necessity of observing works of art as layered evidence of the time in which they were created. Only then can such images be observed with an eye to the numerous social, spiritual, and theological elements woven into the iconographically elaborate compositions that are not necessarily legible at first glance. 72 The presence of such a masterpiece by the early Carpaccio clearly shows how the political presence of Venice in the Eastern Adriatic was reflected in artistic and cultural production. But this work also demonstrates that it would be wrong to see it only as a reflection of fashionable artistic trends from the political center copied in the "periphery" of the Venetian Republic. Instead, it should be viewed as a mirror, primarily of pious trends and practices present along the Eastern Adriatic coast, and only secondarily as a reflection of intellectual, artistic, and cultural vogues. Outlining the similarity of activities in the Zadar cultural circle with those in the broader European cultural centers once again emphasizes the involvement of prominent individuals in a wide network of exchange of ideas between the two Adriatic coasts. By observing the Zadar example through the perspective of the universality of worship of St Jerome, valuable contributions can be made to further study his role in the broader spiritual currents at the turn of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Such a study reflects upon where his veneration mirrors complex theological concepts, primarily the imitatio Christi, which became the backbone of popular piety. The interdependence of pious literature and the painted scene, not only in terms of transferring the textual template into a visual display, but also in their mutual communication as a prayer apparatus, suggests the necessity of scrutinizing other art productions in the Eastern Adriatic through the same prism. Despite the fact that at the time of the execution of altarpiece, Jerome was already celebrated as the patron saint of Dalmatia, the iconography of his depiction does not suggest that this aspect of holiness was presented on this panel, although it was certainly a strong stimulus to the personal veneration of Zadar's canon Mladošić.
A detailed iconographic analysis, although resolving the doubts about the depiction of this Church father, and indicating the stratification of Jerome's character in numerous contexts of worship, calls for caution when interpreting the meaning of his depictions on the Eastern Adriatic coast. Regardless of the fact that he was celebrated as the protector of Dalmatia, the reasons for portraying his figure did not always have a foothold in that idea.
Finally, the Zadar Polyptych, or rather the panel depicting St Jerome and the donor, shows Carpaccio's ingenuity in translating the spiritual currents of his time into visual language. The commissioner must have played an important role in choosing the theological template, which shows his deep connection with the saint by portraying the intimate moment of Jerome and his vision of Christ. Devotion to St Jerome, like the other saints depicted, was the main impetus to this votive commission, which we can read as an expression of the canon's simultaneously externalized and internalized piety. The physical votive act -consecration of the altar of St Martin -is a material expression of internalized piety that can be seen in the intellectual-spiritual reading of the content of the image, which reflects the inner spiritual world of the commissioner and the Christian ideals to which he aspired. Thus, the altar of St Martin, in addition to its already established liturgical function, became a place of personal prayer, primarily for the commissioner and then for all those who prayed before it.
This example shows once again that it is difficult to approach sacral art dichotomously, through the general categories of public or private piety, where public refers to liturgical patterns, the sacral space of the church, and to the institutionalized approach, and private only to the personal spiritual experience at home or in any other space other than the primarily sacral. The artwork discussed here shows that this narrow line could be further extended to the established art categories of Andachtsbilder and altarpieces. Although not visible at first glance, the depiction of Saint Jerome's vision, and the clear association to his bodily pain as an expression of the redemption of personal sins, became equivalent to the representation of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, where the imitatio Hieronymi equaled the imitatio Christi. The whole depiction took on a symbolic reference to the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ's passion, through the interwoven themes of sacrifice and redemption, thus becoming a suitable theme for an altarpiece. Although the question of the audience and the function of the Zadar Polyptych that this work raises, same as other works of art on the Eastern Adriatic coast created in the same period, will certainly be discussed again in scholarly literature, this analysis shows that as much as we call this masterpiece of Renaissance painting "Carpaccio's polyptych, " it equally deserves to be called "Mladošić's polyptych, " as without his influence, profound devotion, and mystical experiences, the painter would have never created it. Regardless of some earlier researchers discussing the possibility that the panels of the polyptych were made in several phases and only later joined together, the difference in the quality of the execution of some of the panels, the format of the panels, and the choice of the depicted saints point to the conclusion that it was intended as a unique composition. The difference in the quality of execution in some of the figures opens the question of the possibility that by that time Carpaccio had already formed a workshop whose members took part in the execution of some of the panels, but that is the question for another discussion.