This small terracotta figure of the young St John the Baptist, now in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, was originally housed in the Opera di San Giovanni, the administrative body of the Florentine Baptistery. It is attributed to Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, whose work bridges the elegance of the late Gothic with the emerging naturalism of the early Renaissance.

The youthful saint stands in quiet contemplation, clothed in his familiar camel-skin tunic and holding a scroll inscribed with Ecce Agnus Dei (“Behold the Lamb of God”). The modelling is soft and intimate: the roundness of the face, the gentle inclination of the head, and the calm focus of the eyes all convey a sense of inward grace. Subtle traces of original polychromy remain, suggesting that the surface once carried flesh tones and gilded highlights to heighten its lifelike presence.

Michelozzo’s handling of terracotta combines devotional simplicity with remarkable technical control. The clay is shaped with delicate precision, capturing both the saint’s youthful tenderness and the nascent awareness of his divine calling. This combination of naturalism and sanctity is characteristic of early Florentine sculpture, reflecting the city’s growing humanist outlook.

Although modest in scale, the work embodies the spiritual and artistic ideals that defined quattrocento Florence: faith expressed through calm proportion, humanity through sacred form. In its restrained beauty and contemplative mood, this Young St John the Baptist stands as an eloquent link between medieval piety and the dawning sensibility of the Renaissance.