(Click to enlarge)
Painting by Antonello da Messina, Naples, 1460. Here’s an account of St. Jerome (Hieronymus) in German, and here in English. (At the latter site, the translators’ hall of fame seems thinly populated – only Jerome and Jean François Champollion, who deciphered the Rosetta Stone). I once had a copy of an old painting or woodcut showing Jerome making mousetraps, but I can’t find that.
Hi Margaret
Happy Translator’s Day! Why did Jerome make mousetraps in your painting? For a balanced perspective, let’s pay hommage to Kumarajiva as well :-)
Cheers
ME
OK, but this Kumarajiva was translating in the wrong direction, wasn’t he? I went to Changan in 1975 but the Buddhist bits were all locked up or converted.
I think St. Jerome wanted to kill mice, although his lion should have done that. There is a thin lion at the back right of Messina picture, and perhaps even a cat at the left of the modular office.
Today is International Translation Day, aka the saint’s day of St. Jerome, patron saint of translators; read all about it at Transblawg, Enigmatic Mermaid, and Open Brackets….
Reminds me of an entertaining talk and slide-show on the painting given to a London ITI Group at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, on St. Jerome’s Day all of 12 years ago. I don’t seem to remember the picture hanging in the Gallery itself. Maybe that’s why we saw slides only.