São João Batista

By around 1540 Titian was the most sought-after painter in Europe, and this towering Saint John shows why. The saint stands almost life-size in his rough animal skin, one arm raised, a cross of tied reeds in his hand and a lamb at his feet, set against a wild landscape with the river Jordan glinting behind. The muscular, sculptural body reflects Titian's growing interest in the heroic figures coming out of Rome and Florence in those years. Giorgio Vasari, the first great biographer of artists, saw it in Venice and singled it out, describing the Baptist standing among rocks in the wilderness. It hung on an altar in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore until that church was suppressed under Napoleon, and in 1807 the painting was carried across the city to the Accademia, where it still hangs.