LOCATION: Aosta, Cathedral, apse sII window

DIMENSIONS: 5 panels lancet window; h. 385 cms. x w. 85 cms.

PROVENANCE: original location

CHRONOLOGY: end of the XV century (recorded: restoration of the cathedral in 1493)

AUTHOR: local school

PATRONAGE: De Prez family

SUBJECT: St. John the Baptist, the last prophet. Son of SS. Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary, and Zacharias. Feast 24 June, on the day of his birth (signalized as a day of triumph), and 29 August anniversary of his beheading. Titular of the parish. The Precurso is shown here as a middle-aged ascetic with a short brown beard, wearing his hermit’s costume of a hairy camel skin, wrapped in a carmine red mantle, holding a banner with a cross and a book with the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei) on it. The figure is included in a rich Renaissance golden niche. The coat of arms of the Bishop’s family – a rampant lion in gold on a blue field (without the episcopal insignia) – stands out in the centre of the first panel, included in a architectonic structure with puttoes on both sides.

CRITICAL NOTES: The composition is similar to that of the Virgin and Child (see Aosta Cathedral 3) St. Gratus (see Aosta Cathedral 1) and St. Jocundus (see Aosta Cathedral 4), and has repeatedly been linked with the one of the same subject in the collegiate church of St. Orso in Aosta because of the setting and the pose of St. John the Baptist, but in the Cathedral we can see the change into a "prospectic" and monumental style.

CONDITIONS: in good conditions, except for some fractures and two glass fragments missing. A great part of the figurative elements are painted with silver stain.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bibl. Cattedrale di Aosta .

PHOTOGRAPHIC REFERENCE: photographic files Emanuela Linda Cappa (Photo Domenico Grossi, Aosta, March 1998)

EDITOR: Emanuela Linda Cappa, May 2003