Les Funérailles de saint Jérôme (élément de la prédelle du Retable Rinieri)

Francesco di Antonio di Bartolomeo contributed this predella panel depicting the funeral of Saint Jerome to the Rinieri Altarpiece, a Florentine commission from the early fifteenth century when predella narratives served as didactic footnotes to the main devotional image above. Jerome, the great Church Father and translator of the Latin Vulgate, was a beloved subject in Florentine painting because his scholarly austerity resonated with humanist values. Francesco worked in the orbit of Lorenzo Monaco and the late Gothic tradition, and the Rinieri predella represents one of the few documented multi-panel works through which his style can be assessed. The funeral scene, with its assembly of mourning monks, reflects the standard hagiographic account drawn from Jerome's Vita.

Francesco employs a compressed frieze composition typical of predella panels, using shallow space and overlapping figures to convey the crowd gathered at Jerome's bier. The palette leans toward muted ochres and cool greys, with gold halos rendered in tooled leaf. Line is precise and decorative rather than sculptural.