Circulation of Vita et Transitus Sancti Hieronymi along the Eastern Adriatic Coast in the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

The Vita et Transitus Sancti Hieronymi was a main devotional work upon which the humanist and the renaissance cult of Saint Jerome was built, testified by a large number of manuscript copies, and printed editions of the work. This paper explores the previously unacknowledged presence of the work in the Eastern Adriatic Coast, especially in the Dalmatian communes, where Jerome has been praised as a national saint since the 15th century. Based on the archival documents, quotations of the Transitus in other written works, and its use as a textual model for the visual representations, it discusses the direct and indirect influence on the promotion of veneration of Jerome. Furthermore, it contributes to the notion of the exchange of ideas and artistic models between two shores of the Adriatic Sea during the Late Middle Ages.

Keywords

• transitus sancti hieronymi
• dalmatia
• communes
• humanism
• renaissance