Jerome is kneeling to study and translate Holy Scripture, when a voice from heaven calls him (symbolically represented by a trumpet) which makes him spin around and look upwards. It refers to an episode in his life: a vision he had during his first trip to Palestine, narrated in a letter from the same saint to Eutychius: "Suddenly I was grabbed in spirit and dragged in front of the Judge's seat ... I was asked to declare my condition and I replied that I was a Christian. But the Presider said: "You lie, you are Ciceronian, not a Christian. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be" ... Swearing I appealed to the name of the Lord: "O Lord, if I ever have books again worldly or I will read them, I will have denied you "" (Girolamo, ed. 1980, pp. 125-129).