Saint Jerome in the Wilderness
Leonardo da Vinci
~1480–1482
Painting – Museum
Adult €25
15min
Vatican Pinacoteca (Room IX)
Viale Vaticano, Vatican City 00120
The only Leonardo da Vinci painting in Rome — unfinished, on walnut panel. The preparatory underdrawing is fully visible, offering a unique window into Leonardo's working process and his obsessive anatomical study (the neck musculature is extraordinary). Reportedly rediscovered being used as a workbench by a Roman cobbler. The absence of colour gives it an intensity unlike any finished Leonardo.


