DOMENICO FIASELLA known as IL SARZANA (Sarzana, 1589 - Genoa, 1669) Saint Jerome, c. 1618-1620 Oil on canvas, 120X98.5 cm In excellent conservation condition, the painting has been attributed to Domenico Fiasella's catalogue by Anna Orlando. The scholar places its execution at an early point in time, 1618-1619, thus, a few years after his return from Rome in 1616, when he painted the altarpiece dedicated to St. Lazarus Pleading with the Virgin for his hometown. Indeed, the canvas clearly expresses a Roman, Caravaggesque matrix, but also influenced by an elegance reminiscent of Gentileschi, inflections of Tuscan taste and a naturalism of Bolognese origin. In this case, Fiasella exhibits at its best the learned Capitoline culture and the teaching of the 'good masters'. In fact, one can observe how the pictorial fabric possesses that attentive meticulousness that weaves every element of colour to a shiny and compact consistency, stretched out in the attention to the iridescences functional to an interpretation of Caravaggism that is indeed softer, but always mindful of the necessary squares of light and shadow to give substance to the figure. Suffice it to observe how the shadow shapes the back and arms of the saint, as well as the drapery that envelops him, capable of defining the roundness and depth of the image. A doing that during the subsequent Genoese years will be attenuated, expressing a greater sensitivity to transparencies and the chromatic assortment of the weave, while the colour becomes liquid, italic, inclined and adapted to Baroque expressiveness, but in which the vigour fades along with the quality. We can therefore say that we are in the presence of the best moment of Fiasella's Genoese activity, which manifests a mature pictorial and compositional happiness. The work is accompanied by a critical card by Anna Orlando. Reference bibliography: R. Soprani, Le Vite de' Pittori, Scultori, et Architetti Genovesi, e de' Forestieri, che in Genova operarono..., Genoa 1674, pp. 245-253 R. Soprani, C. G. Ratti, Vite de' Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti genovesi di Raffaello Soprani patrizio genovese...Genova 1768, I, pp. 224-237 F. R. Pesenti, La Pittura in Liguria. Artisti del primo Seicento, Genoa 1986, pp. 231-305 G. Papi, Tre dipinti della fase giovanile di Domenico Fiasella, in Arte cristiana, LXXX, 750, 1992, pp. 99-200 F. R. Pesenti, Il primo momento del caravaggismo a Genova', in Genova nell'Età Barocca, exhibition catalogue (Genoa) edited by E. Gavazza and G. Rotondi Terminiello, Bologna 1992, pp. 74-81 P. Boccardo, A. Orlando, L'eco caravaggesca a Genova. La presenza di Caravaggio e dei suoi seguaci e i riflessi sulla pittura genovese, in Caravaggio e l'Europa, exhibition catalogue (Milan) edited by V. Sgarbi, Milan 2005, pp. 103-115 A. Gesino, M. Romanengo, Excursus between light and shade of Domenico Fiasella's youthful activity and early maturity, in Studi di Storia dell'arte, 2007, pp. 1-32 A. Orlando, Artemisia e Genova (e il ruolo di Domenico Fiasella tra Roma e Genova), in Artemisia e il suo tempo, exhibition catalogue in Rome, Milan 2016, pp. 47-53 A. Orlando, ed., Caravaggio e i Genovesi. Committenti, collezionisti, pittori, exhibition catalogue, Genoa 2019, pp. 150-173