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In Bethlehem Jerome attained his greatest literary achievements: his version of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew text, his scriptural commentaries, and his catalogue of Christian authors. His diatribe against the Pelagians provoked a body of partisans to set fire to the monastic buildings, forcing Jerome to seek refuge in a neighboring fortress. Piero's first image of Jerome (1450), in tempera on wood, depicts the saint in the wilderness performing penance before a crucifix, accompanied by a lion, for Jerome is said to have removed a thorn from the lion's paw. At his feet is a red cardinal's hat, another attribute of the saint. The background imagery is serene, even idyllic, hardly a wilderness at all but a pleasant oasis, a cultivated river landscape, populated with slender, well-pruned trees, in essence a garden for contemplation and meditation. The fierce heat summoned by St. Jerome's words to St. Eustochium is absent here; Piero treats even this raging if reluctant ascetic with the balance and harmony that are the hallmarks of Renaissance humanism and humanistic works of art. Jerome's penance, transmitted by Piero's serene brush, is hardly a privation at all, surrounded as the saint is by his creature comforts, books, friendly lion and abundant trees beneath a pale, benign cerulean sky. The painting seems to be telling us—and the devotee for whom it was made—that there is beauty and comfort in solitary prayer. In St Jerome and a Supplicant (circa 1460-64) we have a more detailed rendering of St. Jerome's face; he looks HYLAND