After the painting by El Greco today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (oil on canvas, 108 x 89 cm.).¹ Saint Jerome is shown in the🌺 red vestments of a cardinal, seated before an open book, an attribu꧟te indicating his role as translator of the Bible from Greek into Latin in the fifth century. His gaunt features and long white beard refer to his familiar guise as a penitent, recalling his retreat to the Syrian desert. El Greco's painting is notable for the novel way in which the artist synthesised the two aspects of Saint Jerome, the scholarly and the ascetic.