Now back on display after a decade of restoration work, the Italian mannerist Parmigianino's "huge" altarpiece "The Vision of Saint Jerome" (1526-27) is no cosy nativity scene. It's a true oddity.

Saint Jerome, one of the four great Latin Doctors of the Church (the other three being St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great), was the pre-eminent scholar and translator of Sacred ...

For St. Jerome - "strenuous Catholic ... he also wrote on Isaias' vision of the Seraphim. He then returned to Rome on ecclesiastical business, and Pope Damasus admitted him into his court.[ ...