In the last post we focused on paintings mostly with Christian and Biblical themes. A word about the Venetian renaissance which attracted many artists.
Some of the art was quite humorous such as this painting…..
Here’s a painting of a handsome young John the Baptizer….
Yes there were some paintings from classical settings…. here’s a rather lame attempt to depict a Vestal Virgin in all the wrong clothes….
This is Democritus and Heraclitus painted by a Dutch painter named Cornelisz of Haarlem in the 17th century.
There is in addition Christian art in the form of sculpture, for instance of the fictional scene of Veronica wiping Jesus’ face as he falls on the Via Dolorosa, and the image of Christ’s face ending up on her cloth.
For better or worse, there have been many many paintings and portrayals of St. Jerome, a favorite subject. Often with a skull in his grotto in Bethlehem. Here are several of the portrayals 
In the Western church Jerome is all important as the one who rendered the Bible into Latin, which became the official version of the Bible in Catholicism, hence all the paintings of Jerome. Sometimes he even shows up in altar pieces! Here below is an altar piece of Jesus being anointed in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7).
Most every church or cathedral in Europe had altar pieces like the ones below….
This is the risen Christ, appearing presumably to Mary and the Beloved Disciple…
Illuminated paintings and altar pieces in the West, were rivaled by icons in the Greek East. This museum doesn’t appear to have any of the latter, but it has plenty of the former, for instance….
This is Mary and the infant Jesus being presented gifts by the three wise men.
One of the things that got decorative art, were prayer books, and the so-called Book of Hours. Here is a description and a sample,
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