Art Resource, New York, N.Y.

“St. Jerome in his cell”, a woodcut by the German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). As early as the first century A.D., various Latin translations were made from the Septuagint—the third-century B.C. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible—producing an accumulation of textual alterations and corruptions. Jerome (c. 345–420) worked directly from the Hebrew Bible in preparing a new Latin translation, now called the Vulgate. He carried out his great task in Bethlehem, where he had settled in 386.

At Jerome’s feet rests the lion that, legend holds, became his faithful companion after he pulled a thorn from its paw.