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In the Frari Church, I'm always impressed by this so delicate John the Baptist (1554) by the Italian sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570), one of the most influential artists in Venice. A comment by Lucio : I have never seen this statue before, but it did not immediately strike me as Christian, or even Venetian. But this is hardly surprising, given that the artist began his career in Rome, where he was profoundly influenced by the renewal of interest in classical art that took place during the Renaissance. (Sansovino fled Rome after it was sacked in 1527, and intended to return there at a later date in order to complete a series of unfinished commissions.) Which is not to say that I think this elegant sculpture - which in no small way foreshadows Mannerism - stands (or should that be ‘sits’?) outside the Christian tradition. Even so, subject matter aside, there can be little doubt that the artist was in a neo-classical frame of mind when he conceived it. For example, the contraposto pose and the carefully articulated musculature of the chest and upper arm are more in keeping with body of an exhausted centurion than with that of a famished saint. Or perhaps this is the point. Sansovino may have been striving for an ambiguity which forces us to read this not only as a portrait of Christ’s first evangelist, but also his first soldier of the cross.

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