Relief, terracotta, depicting the birth of John the Baptist, by Benedetto da Maiano, Italy, ca. 1477

Terracotta relief depicting the Birth and Naming of John the Baptist.
To the right, St. Elizabeth in bed; in front of her the Virgin holding the newly-born St John and a maid preparing a bath. In the bottom right corner Zacharias, husband of Elizabeth, writes at the dictation of an angel. To the far left, three ladies enter the room followed by a maid.

From the Gigli-Campana Collection.

The scene conforms to the iconography of the birth and naming of John the Baptist, with his mother St Elizabeth in bed and her husband, Zacharias, seated in the lower right corner. The infant saint sits on the lap of the Virgin Mary, who according to the Golden Legend, performed the duties of the midwife, while Zacharias writes down his son's name with an angel as an observer. The left hand side of the relief is crowded with female attendants, one of whom kneels by a finely decorated jar in the centre of the room.
Originally ascribed to Ghiberti, the relief was identified by Bode as the work of Benedetto da Maiano. Its close similarity to the relief by Antonio del Pollaiuolo on the silver altar for the Florentine Baptistry (now in the Museo del Duomo) led Reymond to reject it as a forgery, but this argument did not find favor. Pope-Hennessy also judged the comparison with Pollaiuolo's relief "superficial", arguing for a close relationship with Domenico Ghirlandaio's frescoes, for the birth of the Virgin and the Birth of the Baptist in Santa Maria Novella in Florence. He also proposed a dating of 1485-90, contemporary with Ghirlandaio's frescoes and suggested that the relief might be a "sketch model for a predella panel". More recently Radke made the highly ingenious and convincing proposal that the relief was an alternative model by Benedetto for a silver relief of the Birth of the Baptist awarded to Pollaiuolo in 1477. He observed that Pollaiuollo's model was contested soon after its submission in August 1477, only to be reinstated in January 1478. During this period, Benedetto's brother Giuliano was capomaestro or chief architect of the cathedral, and their brother-in-law , Antonio di Salvi, obtained another commission , The Feast of Herod, originally assigned to Pollaiuolo. With influential family support, the young Benedetto would have decided to chance his arm and submit a model for the other subjects awarded to Pollaiuolo.
As Radke observed, the competitors were required to submit two models, one in wax and the other in clay; in addition; the measurements of Benedetto's relief correspond approximately to another relief on the silver altar, Verrocchio's Beheading of the Baptist and the terracotta does read like an informed critique of Pollaiuolo's confused and overly elaborate design. The interior setting is articulated with classicizing pilasters like those in Verocchio's relief, but unlike the gothic detailing found in Pollaiuolo's. The action of the scene is also clarified through the compactness of the figural and decorative elements. Although Benedetto lacked training as a silversmith, he made strong efforts to conform to the nature of the medium. The relief is extremely shallow compared with his reliefs for marble sculpture and the figures are designed so that they could be wrought and affixed to the backdrop relief. In this way and through the articulation of the interior's perspective, Benedetto may have had help from his older brother, the architect and intarsia master Giuliano. In the event, the strategem failed, and Pollaiuolo's commission was reconfirmed.
Myssok has challenged Radke's thesis, on the grounds of Benedetto's inexperience in working with silver . He also rejected Pope-Hennessy's identification of the relief as a model for a predella panel, noting that he is not known to have executed an altar dedicated to the Baptist. He proposed, instead, that the relief might have been made as an aid for the painter Ghirlandaio, presumably while at work on the Santa Maria Novella frescoes in the 1480s. Against this, it should be observed that Benedetto's relief does not function impeccably as a study in perspectival relationships as the proportions of the figures are too large for their space, especially when compared to the pulpit reliefs. It is also difficult to see why Ghirlandaio would have wanted such a small model when engaged on monumental frescoes, nor, for that matter, are there any records of Ghirlandaio's having used similar models. Such a line of argument seems inherently less plausible than Radke's proposal, at least until further evidence appears.

The above is the catalogue entry from the Earth and Fire catalogue.

Sacred scenes such as the Birth of John the Baptist and the Birth of the Virgin provide good source material for understanding Renaissance practices surrounding childbirth and confinement. Strictly speaking the present relief does not depict the birth of John but rather the confinement of saint Elizabeth after the event. These scenes provided their audience, particularly women, with the portrayal of a biblical event made more tangible through the inclusion of contemporary detail. The more realistic the treatment of the scene, the more familiar it became and the greater the empathy it could evoke in the witness. The inclusion of realia, objects such as towels and basins enabled Renaisance women a direct indentification with the subject matter that no other type of image could. Jacqueline Marie Mussachio notes evidence that women were considered to require extra visual stimuli to assist them with devotional practice and cites a devotional handbook , the Zadino de oration (1454) which encouraged women to imagine holy stories in familiar settings inhabited by familiar people. While not all scenes are necessarily reliable representations, with some artists embellishing structures, costumes or objects, the details of the present relief do not seem outlandish. Indeed the authenticity of the straw-wrapped bottles bourne by the woman on the far left, and the plate of victuals which she balances on her head, are details corroborated in Domenico Ghirlandaio's fresco of the birth of John the Baptist in Santa Maria Novella and by Vasari, who noted in a manuscript held in the Magistrato dei Pupilli avanti il Principato, that it was a Florentine custom to bring such nourishment from the country home to the confinement. The one element which is perhaps subject to exaggeration by Benedetto is the basin located in the centre foreground. This receptacle is of relatively sizeable proportions and is decorated with swags, making it far grander and more urn-like than other depictions of the same object. This detail of ostentation reflects the importance of portraying the family as prosperous and therefore respectable. The basin also confirms the Baptist's religious prestige, this is an object fit for the saint.

This relief, depicting the 'Birth of St John the Baptist' is made by Benedetto da Maiano in Italy in ca. 1477.

The scene conforms to the traditional iconography of the birth and naming of the New Testament character John the Baptist. It shows his mother, St Elizabeth, in bed and her husband, Zacharias, seated in the lower right-hand corner. The infant saint sits on the lap of the Virgin Mary. According to the Golden Legend, a medieval compilation of the lives of saints, Mary performed the duties of the midwife. Zacharias writes down his son's name, John, with an angel as an observer. The left-hand side of the relief is crowded with female attendants.
The detailed decoration suggests that the terracotta was a model for a relief to be executed in silver.

7593-1861