Baptism of Christ

Andrea del Brescianino's Baptism of Christ at the Battistero di San Giovanni, painted around 1524, depicts the beginning of Christ's public ministry — the moment of his baptism by John in the Jordan, with the Holy Spirit descending as a dove and the divine voice pronouncing 'This is my beloved Son' — in a work executed specifically for a baptistery, the building dedicated to the sacrament of baptism in the Christian community. Brescianino was a Sienese painter who developed a personal synthesis of the Sienese tradition with the influence of Raphael and Perugino, and his Baptism composition reflects the Umbrian-influenced soft style that dominated central Italian devotional painting in the early sixteenth century. The Battistero di San Giovanni — likely the famous Siena baptistery — holds this altarpiece in its original liturgical context, making it among the rare works that can still be understood in the precise architectural and sacramental setting for which they were created. The baptistery location gave the Baptism of Christ particular resonance: those receiving the sacrament looked upon the image of the primal baptism from which all Christian baptism derived its authority and meaning.

The devotional composition is rendered with attention to the expressive and contemplative qualities that served the painting's function as an aid to prayer and meditation.