San Girolamo (1485-90)

This convent, which was built around a distinctive semi-circular piazza, originally belonged to the Amadeiti Fathers, a reformed branch of the Franciscan Order.   They seemed to have settled here in ca. 1483, when they seem to have taken over the spiritual guidance of the tertiary Franciscan nuns at Sant' Agnese and Sant' Antonio da Padova;  these communities were locked in conflict with their erstwhile spiritual directors, the Observant Franciscans from the Convento di Monteripido, over the vexed issue of clausura.

The friars were very popular with the Perugians, who appreciated their works of charity, and who intervened on two occasions (in 1523 and 1563) when the papal authorities sought to remove them.  When Pope Pius V finally merged the Amadeiti Fathers with the main branch of the Franciscans in 1568, the convent passed to the Observant Franciscans, who remained here until the late 18th century.

Works Removed from the Church

San Girolamo Altarpiece (ca. 1510)

This altarpiece, which is attributed to Giovan Battista Caporali, was recorded on the high altar of the church in the 17th century.  Agostino Tofanelli, the director of the Musei Capitolini selected it for dispatch to Rome in 1811, probably on the basis of an attribution to Perugino.  It was subsequently decided that it should remain in the church.  It was moved to the back wall of the apse in 1822 and entered the Galleria Nazionale (Room 27) in 1863.

St Bonaventure in his Study (1669)

This panel by Giovanni Andrea Carlone is now in the Galleria Nazionale (Room 37).

Return to Walk IV.