The painting was commissioned by the Congregation of St Jerome of Charity for the church of the same name in Via Giulia in Rome. The Bolognese painter came to the city in 1602 at the request of Annibale Carracci, with whom he worked in the Farnese Gallery.
The Communion of St Jerome constitutes his first important recognition in Rome and largely excited the enthusiastic approval of his contemporaries, who considered it among the masterpieces of Italian art. The subject, which is quite rare, is that of St Jerome who, by now ninety years of age, on the point of death wants to take his last communion surrounded by his disciples and St Paula. Domenichino took his inspiration from a painting with the same subject by his master Agostino Carracci ten years previously.
