Matthew 3:4 - NLV - John wore clothes made of hair from... Parallel Translations The Amplified Bible This same John's garments were made of camel's hair, and he wore a leather girdle about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Holman Christian Standard John himself had a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Easy-to-Read Version John's clothes were made from camel's hair. John had a leather belt around his waist. For food, John ate locusts and wild honey. The Complete Jewish Bible Yochanan wore clothes of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Darby's Translation And John himself had his garment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his nourishment was locusts and wild honey. English Standard Version Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

English Revised Version Now John himself had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Contemporary English Version John wore clothes made of camel's hair. He had a leather strap around his waist and ate grasshoppers and wild honey. The Bishop's Bible (1568) This Iohn had his rayment of Camels heere, and a girdle of a skynne about his loynes, his meate was locustes, and wylde hony. Bible in Basic English Now John was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather band about him; and his food was locusts and honey. George Lamsa Translation of the Peshitta Now the same John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had leathern belts around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Good News Translation John's clothes were made of camel's hair; he wore a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. J.P.

Green Literal Translation And John himself had his clothing from hairs of a camel, and a belt of leather about his loin. And his food was locusts and wild honey. Miles Coverdale Bible (1535) This Ihon had his garment of camels heer, and a lethre gerdell aboute his loynes. Hys meate was locustes and wylde hony. New American Standard Version Now John himself had a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. New Century Version John's clothes were made from camel's hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food, he ate locusts and wild honey. The Geneva Bible (1587) And this Iohn had his garment of camels heare, and a girdle of a skinne about his loynes: his meate was also locusts and wilde hony. American Standard Version Now John himself had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey.

New International Version John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. New King James Now John himself was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. New Living Translation John's clothes were woven from camel hair, and he wore a leather belt; his food was locusts and wild honey. King James Version (1611) And the same Iohn had his raiment of camels haire, and a leatherne girdle about his loynes, and his meate was locusts and wilde hony. King James Version And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. New Revised Standard Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Hebrew Names Version Now Yochanan himself had clothing made of camel's hair, and a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

The Webster Bible And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Mace New Testament (1729) now John wore a coat made of camels hair, with a leathern girdle about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild hony. International Standard Version John had clothing made of camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist. His diet consisted of locusts and wild honey. John Etheridge Translation of the Peshitta But this Juchanon, his clothing was of the hair of camels, with a loins-belt of leather upon his loins; and his food was locusts and wilderness-honey. James Murdock Translation of the Peshitta And as to this John, his raiment was of camel's hair, and a girdle of skin was upon his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey.

The Emphasised Bible But John, himself, had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, - while, his food, was locusts and wild honey. Douay-Rheims Bible And the same John had his garment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins: and his meat was locusts and wild honey. Revised Standard Version Now John wore a garment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Tyndale Bible This Iho had hys garmet of camels heer and a gerdell of a skynne aboute his loynes. Hys meate was locustes and wylde hony. Updated Bible Version 1.9 Now John himself had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey. World English Bible Now John himself had clothing made of camel's hair, and a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

Wesley's New Testament (1755) And this John had his raiment of camels hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Weymouth New Testament This man John wore a garment of camel's hair, and a loincloth of leather; and he lived upon locusts and wild honey. The Wycliffe Bible (1395) And this Joon hadde clothing of camels heeris, and a girdil of skynne aboute hise leendis; and his mete was honysoukis, and hony of the wode. Young's Literal Translation And this John had his clothing of camel's hair, and a girdle of skin round his loins, and his nourishment was locusts and honey of the field. The Message John dressed in a camel-hair habit tied at the waist by a leather strap. He lived on a diet of locusts and wild field honey. 2 Kings 1:6 They said, "A man came up to meet us. He said to us, 'Go and return to the king who sent you.

Tell him, "This is what the Lord says. 'Are you asking Baal-zebub the god of Ekron because there is no God in Israel? So you will not leave the bed on which you lie. You will die for sure.' " ' " 2 Kings 1:16 Then Elijah said to Ahaziah, "This is what the Lord says. 'You have sent men to ask of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron. Is it because there is no God in Israel to ask of His Word? So now you will not leave the bed on which you lie. You will die for sure.' " return to 'Jump List' Gill's Notes on the Bible The same John had his raiment,....

The Evangelist goes on to describe this excellent person, the forerunner of our Lord, by his raiment; the same John of whom Isaiah prophesied, and who came preaching the doctrine in the place and manner before expressed, had his raiment of camel's hair; not of camel's hair softened and dressed, which the Talmudists call צמר גמלים "camel's wool"; of which wool of camels and of hares, the Jews say the coats were made, with which God clothed Adam and Eve; and which being spun to a thread, and wove, and made a garment of, they call חמילה, and we "camlet"; for this would have been too fine and soft for John to wear, which is denied of him, Matthew 11:8 but either of a camel's skin with the hair on it, such was the "rough garment", or "garment of hair", the prophets used to wear, Zechariah 13:4 or of camels hair not softened but undressed; and so was very coarse and rough, and which was suitable to the austerity of his life, and the roughness of his ministry.

And it is to be observed he appeared in the same dress as Elijah or Elias did, 2 Kings 1:8 in whose spirit and power he came, and whose name he bore, Luke 1:17. And a leathern girdle about his loins; and such an one also Elijah was girt with, 2 Kings 1:8 and which added to the roughness of his garment, though it shows he was prepared and in a readiness to do the work he was sent about. And his meat was locusts and wild honey; by the "locusts" some have thought are meant a sort of fish called "crabs", which John found upon the banks of Jordan, and lived upon; others, that a sort of wild fruit, or the tops of trees and plants he found in the wilderness and fed on, are designed; but the truth is, these were a sort of creatures "called locusts", and which by the ceremonial law were lawful to be eaten, see Leviticus 11:22.

The Misnic doctors describe such as are fit to be eaten after this manner; "all that have four feet and four wings, and whose thighs and wings cover the greatest part of their body, and whose name is חגב "a locust."' For it seems they must not only have these marks and signs, but must be so called, or by a word in any other language which answers to it, as the commentators on this passage observe; and very frequently do these writers speak of locusts that are clean, and may be eaten. Maimonides reckons up "eight" sorts of them, which might be eaten according to the law. Besides, these were eaten by people of other nations, particularly the Ethiopians, Parthians, and Lybians. And wild honey: this was honey of bees, which were not kept at home, but such as were in the woods and fields; of this sort was that which Jonathan found, and eat of, 1 Samuel 14:25 now the honey of bees might be eaten, according to the Jewish laws, though bees themselves might not. return to 'Jump List' Barnes' Notes on the Bible His raiment of camel‘s hair - His clothing.

This is not the fine hair of the camel from which our elegant cloth is made called camlet, nor the more elegant stuff brought from the East Indies under the name of “camel‘s hair,” but the long shaggy hair of the camel, from which a coarse cheap cloth is made, still worn by the poorer classes in the East, and by monks. This dress of the camel‘s hair, and a leather belt, it seems, was the common dress of the prophets, 2 Kings 1:8; Zechariah 13:4. His meat was locusts - His food. These constituted the food of the common people. Among the Greeks the vilest of the people used to eat them; and the fact that John made his food of them is significant of his great poverty and humble life. The Jews were allowed to eat them, Leviticus 11:22. Locusts are flying insects, and are of various kinds. The green locusts are about 2 inches in length and about the thickness of a man‘s finger. The common brown locust is about 3 inches long. The general form and appearance of the locust is not unlike the grasshopper.

They were one of the plagues of Egypt Joel 1:4; Isaiah 33:4-5. “Some species of the locust are eaten until this day in Eastern countries, and are even esteemed as a delicacy when properly cooked. After tearing off the legs and wings, and taking out the entrails, they stick them in long rows upon wooden spits, roast them at the fire, and then proceed to devour them with great zest. There are also other ways of preparing them. For example: they cook them and dress them in oil; or, having dried them, they pulverize them, and, when other food is scarce, make bread of the meal. The Bedouins pack them with salt in close masses, which they carry in their leather sacks. From these they cut slices as they may need them. It is singular that even learned men have suffered themselves to hesitate about understanding these passages of the literal locust, when the fact that these are eaten by the Orientals is so abundantly proved by the concurrent testimony of travelers. One of them says they are brought to market on strings in all the cities of Arabia, and that he saw an Arab on Mount Sumara who had collected a sackful of them.

They are prepared in different ways. An Arab in Egypt, of whom he requested that he would immediately eat locusts in his presence, threw them upon the glowing coals; and after he supposed they were roasted enough, he took them by the legs and head, and devoured the remainder at one mouthful. When the Arabs have them in quantities they roast or dry them in an oven, or boil them and eat them with salt. The Arabs in the kingdom of Morocco boil the locusts; and the Bedouins eat locusts, which are collected in great quantities in the beginning of April, when they are easily caught. After having been roasted a little upon the iron plate on which bread is baked, they are dried in the sun, and then put into large sacks, with the mixture of a little salt. They are never served up as a dish, but every one takes a handful of them when hungry” (Un. Bib. Dic. ).

Burckhardt, one of the most trustworthy of travelers, says: “All the Bedouins of Arabia and the inhabitants of towns in Nejd and Hedjaz are accustomed to eat locusts.” “I have seen at Medina and Tayf locust-shops, where these animals were sold by measure. In Egypt and Nubia they are only eaten by the poorest beggars The Land and the Book, ii. 107). “Locusts,” says Dr. Thomson (The Land and the Book, ii. 108), “are not eaten in Syria by any but the Bedouin on the extreme frontiers, and it is always spoken of as an inferior article of food, and regarded by most with disgust and loathing tolerated only by the very poorest people. John the Baptist, however, was of this class either from necessity or election.” It is remarkable that not only in respect to his food, but also in other respects, the peculiarities in John‘s mode of life have their counterparts in the present habits of the same class of persons.

“The coat or mantle of camel‘s hair is seen still on the shoulders of the Arab who escorts the traveler through the desert, or of the shepherd who tends his flocks on the hills of Judea or in the valley of the Jordan. It is made of the thin, coarse hair of the camel, and not of the fine hair, which is manufactured into a species of rich cloth. I was told that both kinds of raiment are made on a large scale at Nablus, the ancient Shechem. The ‹leathern girdle‘ may be seen around the body of the common laborer, when fully dressed, almost anywhere; whereas men of wealth take special pride in displaying a rich sash of silk or some other costly fabric” (Hackett‘s Illustrations of Scripture, p. 104). Wild honey - This was probably the honey that he found in the rocks of the wilderness. Palestine was often called the land flowing with milk and honey, Exodus 3:8, Exodus 3:17; Exodus 13:5. Bees were kept with great care, and great numbers of them abounded in the fissures of trees and the clefts of rocks.

“Bees abound there still, not only wild, but hived, as with us. I saw a great number of hives in the old castle near the Pools of Solomon; several, also, at Deburieh, at the foot of Tabor: and again at Mejdel, the Magdala of the New Testament, on the Lake of Tiberias. Maundrell says that he saw ‹bees very industrious about the blossoms‘ between Jericho and the Dead Sea, which must have been within the limits of the very ‹desert‘ in which John ‹did eat locusts and wild honey‘” (Hackett‘s Illustrations of Scripture, p. 104). There is also a species of honey called wild honey, or wood honey (1 Samuel 14:27, margin), or honeydew, produced by certain little insects, and deposited on the leaves of trees, and flowing from them in great quantities to the ground. See 1 Samuel 14:24-27. This is said to be produced still in Arabia, and perhaps it was this which John lived upon.

return to 'Jump List' Clarke's Notes on the Bible His raiment of camel's hair - A sort of coarse or rough covering, which, it appears, was common to the prophets, Zechariah 13:4. In such a garment we find Elijah clothed, 2 Kings 1:8. And as John had been designed under the name of this prophet, Malachi 4:5, whose spirit and qualifications he was to possess, Luke 1:17, he took the same habit and lived in the same state of self-denial. His meat was locusts - Ακριδες . Ακρις may either signify the insect called the locust, which still makes a part of the food in the land of Judea; or the top of a plant. Many eminent commentators are of the latter opinion; but the first is the most likely. The Saxon translator has grasshoppers. Wild honey - Such as he got in the rocks and hollows of trees, and which abounded in Judea: see 1 Samuel 14:26.

It is most likely that the dried locusts, which are an article of food in Asiatic countries to the present day, were fried in the honey, or compounded in some manner with it. The Gospel according to the Hebrews, as quoted by Epiphanius, seems to have taken a similar view of the subject, as it adds here to the text, Ου η γευσις ην του μαννα, ως εγκρις εν ελαιω . And its taste was like manna, as a sweet cake baked in oil. John the Baptist - Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio) - Gallery - Web gallery of art 8 John the Baptist (St John the Baptist Reclining), Munich The story of John the Baptist is told in the Gospels. John was the cousin of Jesus, and his calling was to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.

He lived in the wilderness of Judea between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, "his raiment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey." He baptised Jesus in the Jordan, and was eventually killed by Herod Antipas when he called upon the king to reform his evil ways. John was frequently shown in Christian art, identifiable by his bowl, reed cross, camel's skin and lamb. The most popular scene prior to the Counter-Reformation was of John's baptism of Jesus, or else the infant Baptist together with the infant Jesus and Mary his mother, frequently supplemented by the Baptist's own mother St Elizabeth. John alone in the desert was less popular, but not unknown. For the young Caravaggio, John was invariably a boy or youth alone in the wilderness. This image was based on the statement in the Gospel of Luke that "the child grew and was strengthened in spirit, and was in the deserts until the day of his manifestation to Israel." These works allowed a religious treatment of the partly-clothed youths he liked to paint at this period - not all the models have a very saintly look.

Apart these works showing John alone, mostly dated to his early years, Caravaggio painted three great narrative scenes of John's death - the great ution пїЅ in Malta пїЅ, and two sombre Salomes with his head, one in Madrid , and one in London . St John the Baptist at the Fountain, in a private collection in Malta, is difficult to gain access to and consequently few scholars have been able to study it. John Gash treats it as by Caravaggio, pointing out the similarity in the treatment of the flesh to the Sleeping Cupid , recognised as by the artist and dating his Malta period. The painting has been badly damaged, especially in the landscape. The work is known in two other variants, each slightly different. The theme of the young John drinking a spring reflects the Gospel tradition that the Baptist drank only water during his period in the wilderness. The painting displays typically Caravaggist extreme chiaroscuro (use of light and shadow), and is also typical in taking a young John the Baptist as its subject, this time set in a dark landscape against an ominous patch of lighter sky.

"The mechanics of drinking and the psychology of thirst are beautifully conveyed through the artful manipulation of limbs and the carefully constructed head." (John Gash). If it is in fact by the artist, it would have been painted during his approximately 15 months in Malta in 1607-1608. His recognised works this period include such masterpieces as the Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page and The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist . The latter, in the oratory of the Co-Cathedral of Saint John, is the only work that the artist signed. In Malta Caravaggio was accepted into the Order of Saint John (the Knights of Malta) and became in effect their official artist, but his stay ended with a mysterious offense and his expulsion the Order "as a foul and rotten limb". The crime on Malta has been the subject of much speculation, but seems to have extremely serious, possibly even involving the death penalty. Most modern writers believe that it was a crime of violence.

His earliest biographer, Giovanni Baglione, said that there had been a "disagreement" with a knight of justice (i.e., a knight drawn the European nobility); Giovan Pietro Bellori, who visited Malta to see the Beheading of John the Baptist some fifty years after the event, wrote that Caravaggio "had come into conflict with a very noble knight", as a result of which he had incurred the displeasure of the Grand Master and had to flee. It is possible that the offence involved a duel, which was regarded very seriously - but the penalty for duelling was imprisonment, not death. The death penalty was imposed for murder - and a death in a duel or brawl equated to murder - but the wording used by both Baglione and Bellori implied that the knight Caravaggio offended had survived. Peter Robb, in his popular biography M, (1998), makes the case for a sexual misdemeanour, but his argument is speculative.

Hits: John the Baptist - Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio) - Gallery - Web gallery of art 173 cm × 133 cm (68 in × 52 in) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, United States John the Baptist (sometimes called John in the Wilderness) was the subject of at least eight paintings by the Italian Baroque artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571пїЅ1610). The story of John the Baptist is told in the Gospels. John was the cousin of Jesus, and his calling was to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. He lived in the wilderness of Judea between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, "his raiment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey." He baptised Jesus in the Jordan, and was eventually killed by Herod Antipas when he called upon the king to reform his evil ways. John was frequently shown in Christian art, identifiable by his bowl, reed cross, camel's skin and lamb.

The most popular scene prior to the Counter-Reformation was of John's baptism of Jesus, or else the infant Baptist together with the infant Jesus and Mary his mother, frequently supplemented by the Baptist's own mother St Elizabeth. John alone in the desert was less popular, but not unknown. For the young Caravaggio, John was invariably a boy or youth alone in the wilderness. This image was based on the statement in the Gospel of Luke that "the child grew and was strengthened in spirit, and was in the deserts until the day of his manifestation to Israel." These works allowed a religious treatment of the partly-clothed youths he liked to paint at this period - not all the models have a very saintly look. Apart from these works showing John alone, mostly dated to his early years, Caravaggio painted three great narrative scenes of John's death - the great ution in Malta, and two sombre Salomes with his head, пїЅone in Madrid , and one in London . Bellini's Baptist is depicted within a conventional framework that his audience would know and share; Caravaggio's is almost impenetrably private.

In 1604 Caravaggio was commissioned to paint a John the Baptist for the papal banker and art patron Ottavio Costa, who already owned the artist's Judith Beheading Holofernes and Martha and Mary Magdalene . Costa intended it for an altarpiece for a small oratory in the Costa fiefdom of Conscente (a village near Albenga, on the Italian Riviera), but liked it so much that he sent a copy to the oratory and kept the original in his own collection. It is now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Stark contrasts of light and dark accentuate the perception that the figure leans forward, out of the deep shadows of the background and into the lighter realm of the viewer's own space...The brooding melancholy of the Nelson-Atkins Baptist has attracted the attention of almost every commentator. It seems, indeed, as if Caravaggio instilled in this image an element of the essential pessimism of the Baptist's preaching, of the senseless tragedy of his early martyrdom, and perhaps even some measure of the artist's own troubled psyche.

The saint's gravity is at least partly explained, too, by the painting's function as the focal point of the meeting place of a confraternity whose mission was to care for the sick and dying and to bury the corpses of plague victims. Caravaggio biographer Peter Robb has pointed out that the fourth Baptist seems like a psychic mirror-image of the first, with all the signs reversed: the brilliant morning light which bathed the earlier painting has become harsh and almost lunar in its contrasts, and the vivid green foliage has turned to dry dead brown. There is almost nothing in the way of symbols to identify that this is indeed a religious image, no halo, no sheep, no leather girdle, nothing but the thin reed cross (a reference to Christ's description of John as "a reed shaken by the wind"). The painting demonstrates what Robb calls Caravaggio's "feeling for the drama of the human presence." This adolescent, almost adult, John seems locked in some private world known only to his creator. Caravaggio's conception of the saint as a seated, solitary figure, lacking almost any narrative identity (how do we know this is the Baptist? What is happening here?) was truly revolutionary.

Artists from Giotto to Bellini and beyond had shown the Baptist as an approachable story, a symbol understandable to all; the very idea that a work should express a private world, rather than a common religious and social experience, was radically new. Hits: Ferraù Fenzoni – Saint John the Baptist | Galen Galerie Ferraù Fenzoni – Saint John the Baptist (Faenza 1561/2 – 1645 Faenza) Oil on canvas, 32 x 25,5 cm Provenance Private collection, Germany, Trier, c. 1980- 2013 The story of John the Baptist is told in the Gospels. John was the cousin of Jesus, and his calling was to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. He lived in the wilderness of Judea between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, “his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.” He baptized Jesus in the Jordan, and was eventually killed by Herod Antipas when he called upon the king to reform his evil ways. John is frequently shown in Christian art.

In the present picture he is identifiable by his bowl and the locusts, the camel’s skin and the “Ecce (agnus dei)” on the banderole around the reed cross. The painting resembles the composition of a drawing and of an engraving after Ferraù Fenzoni by Francesco Villamena. [1] Drawing, engraving and painting are almost identical, except for minor differences. Even the measurements nearly correspond: painting (32 x 25,5 cm), drawing (30 x 20,5 cm), engraving (31,1 x 23,5 cm). The inscription on the drawing reads “Ferrau Fenzonio da Faenza invt. esque. . . imp. da Fran: Villamena . . .”. The engraving’s inscription also lists place and date “Ferra Fensionius inventor/F. Villamoena sculpsit Rome/Aspectu fruitur… antra puer/cum Privilegio… 1613”. Interestingly, the engraving is not mirrored as it is in most printing processes. Painting, drawing and engraving are not reversed but the same.

It is interesting to note in this context that there are further paintings by Fenzoni which were engraved in the same order and not reverted. They also show strong parallels regarding the compositions and the measurements (see for example “Deposition of Christ” [2] ). However the usual artistic practice was firstly the drawing of sketches, secondly the creation of the painting and finally the design of the engraving, following the composition of the painting. Dr. Guiseppe Scavizzi confirmed the attribution to Fenzoni on the basis of a photograph and he dates it to c. 1590. [3] Ferraù Fenzoni was an Italian painter mainly active in Todi. He is also called Il Faenzone after his birthplace (Faenza). He apprenticed in Rome during the papacy of Gregory XIII and contributed to numerous fresco cycles under pope Sixtus V, such as the Loggia della Benedizioni in the Lateran Palace, the frescoes on the walls and vaults of the Scala Santa of the adjacent Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, and the decoration in the Sistine library. His expressive canvases straddle the styles of Mannerism and Baroque.

In 1594, he moved to Todi. A “Last Judgement” by him is housed in the cathedral of Todi. He returned to Faenza in 1599, where he decorated chapels in the cathedral from 1612 to 1616. In 1622, he completed a “Deposition”, now in the local Pinacoteca. In 1640, Fenzoni was named “cavaliere dello speron d’oro” by Cardinal Colonna and, on 25th April 1634, he was nominated vicar and “castellano of Granarolo”. Fenzoni‘s style is characterized by a mixture of the Mannerism of the Northern Netherlands (e.g. Goltzius) and the Italian Baroque. Works by Ferraù Fenzoni are on display in Italy, e.g. in Rome, Todi and Faenza. The painting is sold together with the drawing. Literature G. Scavizzi, N. Schwed, Ferraù Fenzoni as a painter/ as a draughtsman, Todi 2006.

[1] Fenzoni, Saint John the Baptist, brown ink and wash over red chalk on oatmeal paper, 30 x 20,5 cm, Inscribed: “Ferrau Fenzonio da Faenza invt. esque. . . imp. da Fran: Villamena . . .”, Galen Galerie. Francesco Villamena, Saint John the Baptist, engraving, 31,9 x 24,4 cm. One example of the engraving can be found in London, British Museum, Department of prints and drawings. In the collection of Luca Castrichini there is a reddish impression. See Scavizzi/Schwed (2006), p. 364, No. S 5. [2] Ferraù Fenzoni, Deposition, oil on copper, 21,5 x 24,1 cm, New York, private collection. The engraving was created in 1640 by Fed. Grutter. Scavizzi/ Schwed( 2006), p.185, No. P75. [3] Dr.

Guiseppe Scavizzi , 21. August 2013. „For what I can see from the photograph the painting appear to me to be an original work, style and quality seem to match Fenzoni’s own, and it was probably produced in the 1590s.”; “ … I can confirm that on the base of the reproduction, my impression is that the painting is by Fenzoni.“ john the baptist caravaggio : definition of john the baptist caravaggio and synonyms of john the baptist caravaggio (English) This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (June 2010) John the Baptist (sometimes called John in the Wilderness) was the subject of at least eight paintings by the Italian Baroque artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610). The story of John the Baptist is told in the Gospels . John was the cousin of Jesus , and his calling was to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah .

He lived in the wilderness of Judea between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea , "his raiment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey." He baptised Jesus in the Jordan , and was eventually killed by Herod Antipas when he called upon the king to reform his evil ways. John was frequently shown in Christian art, identifiable by his bowl, reed cross, camel's skin and lamb. The most popular scene prior to the Counter-Reformation was of John's baptism of Jesus, or else the infant Baptist together with the infant Jesus and Mary his mother, frequently supplemented by the Baptist's own mother St Elizabeth . John alone in the desert was less popular, but not unknown. For the young Caravaggio, John was invariably a boy or youth alone in the wilderness. This image was based on the statement in the Gospel of Luke that "the child grew and was strengthened in spirit, and was in the deserts until the day of his manifestation to Israel." These works allowed a religious treatment of the partly clothed youths he liked to paint at this period - not all the models have a very saintly look.

Apart from these works showing John alone, mostly dated to his early years, Caravaggio painted three great narrative scenes of John's death - the great Execution in Malta, and two sombre Salomes with his head, one in Madrid , and one in London . Contents 169 cm × 112 cm (67 in × 44 in) Location Museo Tesoro Catedralicio, Toledo Sacrifice of Isaac , Caravaggio, c. 1598 (detail showing the head of Isaac). Private collection, Princeton, New Jersey - the resemblance between the two heads suggests that the disputed John the Baptist in Toledo is by the same artist. The ascription of this painting to Caravaggio is disputed - the alternative candidate is Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, an early follower. It is in the collection of the Museo Tesoro Catedralicio, Toledo ( Spain ), and John Gash (see references below) speculates that it may have been one of the paintings done by Caravaggio for the prior of the Hospital of the Consolation, as Caravaggio's early biographer Mancini tells us.

According to Mancini the prior "afterwards took them with him to his homeland"; unfortunately, one version of Mancini's manuscript says the prior's homeland was Seville, while another says Sicily. There was a Spanish prior of the hospital in 1593, and he may not have left until June 1595. Gash cites scholar A.E. Perez Sanchez's view that while the figure of the saint has certain affinities with Cavarozzi's style, the rest of the picture does not, "and the extremely high quality of certain passages, especially the beautifully depicted vine leaves...is much more characteristic of Caravaggio." Gash also points to the gentle chiaroscuro and the delicate treatment of contours and features, and similar stylistic features in early works by Caravaggio such as The Musicians and Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy . If this and other paintings by Caravaggio were indeed in Seville at an early date they may have influenced Velázquez in his early works. However, the arguments in favour of Cavarozzi are strong, and he is known to have travelled to Spain about 1617-1619.

[1] Peter Robb , taking the painting to be by Caravaggio, dates it to about 1598, when the artist was a member of the household of his first patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte . Robb points out that the Baptist is evidently the same boy who modelled for Isaac in the Sacrifice of Isaac , which would date both paintings to around the same period. Unfortunately this Sacrifice of Isaac is also disputed, and so the problem of authorship is not solved. John is shown against a background of green grape vines and thorny vine stems, seated on a red cloak, holding a thin reed cross and looking down at a sheep lying at his feet. The red cloak would become a staple of Caravaggio's works, one with many precedents in previous art. [2] John the Baptist carries over many of the concerns which animated Caravaggio's other work from this period. The leaves behind the figure, and the plants and soil around his feet, are depicted with that careful, almost photographic sense of detail which is seen in the contemporary still life Basket of Fruit , while the melancholy self-absorption of the Baptist creates an atmosphere of introspection.

The grape leaves stand for the grapes from which the wine of the Last Supper was pressed, while the thorns call to mind the Crown of Thorns , and the sheep is a reminder of the Sacrifice of Christ. Caravaggio's decision to paint John the Baptist as a youth was somewhat unusual for the age - the saint was traditionally shown as either an infant, together with the infant Jesus and possibly his own and Jesus's mother, or as an adult, frequently in the act of baptising Jesus. Nevertheless it was not totally without precedent. Leonardo had painted a youthful and enigmatically smiling Baptist with one finger pointing upwards (to Heaven?) and the other hand seeming to indicate his own breast, while Andrea del Sarto left a Baptist which almost totally prefigures Caravaggio. Both Leonardo and del Sarto had created from the figure of John something which seems to hint at an entirely personal meaning, one not accessible to the viewer, and Caravaggio was to turn this into something like a personal icon in the course of his many variations on the theme. John the Baptist (Youth with a Ram), Ignudo by Michelangelo , c. 1508-1512. Sistine Chapel , Rome .

The model for Amor Vincit was a boy named Cecco, Caravaggio's servant and possibly his pupil as well. He has been tentatively identified with an artist active in Rome about 1610-1625, otherwise known only as Cecco del Caravaggio - Caravaggio's Cecco - who painted very much in Caravaggio's style. The most striking feature of Amor was the young model's evident glee in posing for the painting, so that it became rather more a portrait of Cecco than a depiction of a Roman demi-god. The same sense of the real-life model overwhelming the supposed subject was transferred to Mattei's John the Baptist. The youthful John is shown half-reclining, one arm around a ram's neck, his turned to the viewer with an impish grin. There's almost nothing to signify that this indeed the prophet sent to make straight the road in the wilderness - no cross, no leather belt, just a scrap of camel's skin lost in the voluminous folds of the red cloak, and the ram.

The ram itself is highly un-canonical - John the Baptist's animal is supposed to be a lamb, marking his greeting of Christ as the ' Lamb of God ' come to take away the sins of mankind. The ram is as often a symbol of lust as of sacrifice, and this naked smirking boy conveys no sense of sin whatsoever. Some biographers have tried to depict Caravaggio as an essentially orthodox Catholic of the Counter-Reformation , but Cecco the Baptist seems as irredeemably pagan as his previous incarnation as Cupid. John the Baptist (Youth with a Ram), c. 1602, 129x94 cm, Doria Pamphilj Gallery , Rome . The Mattei Baptist proved immensely popular - eleven known copies were made, including one recognised by scholars as being from Caravaggio's own hand. It is today held in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery [1] on the Roman Corso. (The gallery also houses his Penitent Magdalene and Rest on the Flight into Egypt ).

The collectors ordering the copies would have been aware of a further level of irony: the pose adopted by the model is a clear imitation of that adopted by one of Michelangelo 's famous ignudi on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (painted 1508-1512). The role of these gigantic male nudes in Michelango's depiction of the world before the Laws of Moses has always been unclear - some have supposed them to be angels, others that they represent the Neo-Platonic ideal of human beauty - but for Caravaggio to pose his adolescent assistant as one of the Master's dignified witnesses to the Creation was clearly a kind of in-joke for the cognoscenti. Saint John the Baptist, c. 1518, by Raphael - a precedent for Caravaggio's treatment of the Baptist In 1601/02 Caravaggio was apparently living and painting in the palazzo of the Mattei family , inundated with commissions from wealthy private clients following the success of the Contarelli chapel where in 1600 he had displayed The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and The Inspiration of Saint Matthew . It was one of the most productive periods in a productive career.

Ciriaco Mattei 's notebook records two payments to Caravaggio in July and December of that year, marking the beginning and completion of the original John the Baptist. The payment was a relatively modest 85 scudi , because John was a single figure. The copy may have been made at the same time or very soon after. In January of that year Caravaggio received a hundred and fifty scudi for Supper at Emmaus . For Vincenzo Giustiniani there was The Incredulity of Saint Thomas , and in January 1603 Ciriaco paid a hundred and twenty-five scudi for The Taking of Christ . Each of these increased the immense popularity of Caravaggio among collectors - twenty copies survive of the Supper at Emmaus, more of the Taking of Christ. But for all this success, neither the Church itself, nor any of the religious Orders , had yet commissioned anything. The paintings in the Contarelli Chapel had been commissioned and paid for by private patrons, although the priests of San Luigi dei Francesi (which contains the chapel) had had to approve the result.

Caravaggio's problem was that the Counter-Reformation Church was extremely conservative - there had been a move to introduce an Index of Prohibited Images, and high-ranking cardinals had published handbooks guiding artists, and more especially the priests who might commission artists or approve art, on what was and was not acceptable. And the playful crypto-paganism of this private John the Baptist with its cross-references to the out of favour Classicising humanism of Michelangelo and the High Renaissance , most certainly was not acceptable. (See Peter Robb, M , below). Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and Saint by Giovanni Bellini , c. 1500-1504. Gallerie dell'Accademia , Venice . John the Baptist, 173 cm × 133 cm (68 in × 52 in) Location Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Bellini's Baptist is depicted within a conventional framework that his audience would know and share; Caravaggio's is almost impenetrably private.

In 1604 Caravaggio was commissioned to paint a John the Baptist for the papal banker and art patron Ottavio Costa, who already owned the artist's Judith Beheading Holofernes and Martha and Mary Magdalene . Costa intended it for an altarpiece for a small oratory in the Costa fiefdom of Conscente (a village near Albenga, on the Italian Riviera ), but liked it so much that he sent a copy to the oratory and kept the original in his own collection. It is now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Stark contrasts of light and dark accentuate the perception that the figure leans forward, out of the deep shadows of the background and into the lighter realm of the viewer's own space...The brooding melancholy of the Nelson-Atkins Baptist has attracted the attention of almost every commentator. It seems, indeed, as if Caravaggio instilled in this image an element of the essential pessimism of the Baptist's preaching, of the senseless tragedy of his early martyrdom, and perhaps even some measure of the artist's own troubled psyche.

The saint's gravity is at least partly explained, too, by the painting's function as the focal point of the meeting place of a confraternity whose mission was to care for the sick and dying and to bury the corpses of plague victims. [2] Caravaggio biographer Peter Robb has pointed out that the fourth Baptist seems like a psychic mirror-image of the first, with all the signs reversed: the brilliant morning light which bathed the earlier painting has become harsh and almost lunar in its contrasts, and the vivid green foliage has turned to dry dead brown. There is almost nothing in the way of symbols to identify that this is indeed a religious image, no halo, no sheep, no leather girdle, nothing but the thin reed cross (a reference to Christ's description of John as "a reed shaken by the wind"). The painting demonstrates what Robb calls Caravaggio's "feeling for the drama of the human presence." This adolescent, almost adult, John seems locked in some private world known only to his creator. Caravaggio's conception of the saint as a seated, solitary figure, lacking almost any narrative identity (how do we know this is the Baptist? What is happening here?) was truly revolutionary.

Artists from Giotto to Bellini and beyond had shown the Baptist as an approachable story, a symbol understandable to all; the very idea that a work should express a private world, rather than a common religious and social experience, was radically new. John the Baptist, 94 cm × 131 cm (37 in × 52 in) Location Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica John the Baptist, Andrea del Sarto , 1528. Pitti Palace , Florence - a precedent for Caravaggio's treatment of the theme, with a similar use of background and symbols. This is one of two John the Baptists painted by Caravaggio in or around 1604 (possibly 1605). It is held in the Palazzo Corsini collection of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica . [3] Like the John done for Ottavio Costa, the figure has been stripped of identifying symbols - no belt, not even the "raiment of camel's hair", and the reed cross is only suggested. The background and surrounds have darkened even further, and again there is the sense of a story from which the viewer is excluded.

Caravaggio was not the first artist to have treated the Baptist as a cryptic male nude - there were prior examples from Leonardo , Raphael , Andrea del Sarto and others - but he introduced a new note of realism and drama. His John has the roughened, sunburnt hands and neck of a labourer, his pale torso emerging with a contrast that reminds the viewer that this is a real boy who has gotten undressed for his modelling session - unlike Raphael's Baptist, who is as idealised and un-individualised as one of his winged cherubs. Ask who this model actually is, (or was), and the realism of the individual spills over as a record of Rome itself in the age of Caravaggio.

Biographer Peter Robb cites Montaigne on Rome as a city of universal idleness, "...the envied idleness of the higher clerics, and the frightening idleness of the destitute...a city almost without trades or professions, in which the churchmen were playboys or bureaucrats, the laymen were condemned to be courtiers, all the pretty girls and boys seemed to be prostitutes, and all wealth was inherited old money or extorted new." It was not an age which welcomed an art that emphasised the real. John the Baptist (St John the Baptist at the Fountain), 100 cm × 73 cm (39 in × 29 in) Location private collection Sleeping Cupid , Caravaggio , 1608. Pitti Palace , Florence - stylistic similarities with the attested Cupid lend support to the disputed John the Baptist at the Fountain. St John the Baptist at the Fountain, in a private collection in Malta, is difficult to gain access to and consequently few scholars have been able to study it.

John Gash (see references, below) treats it as by Caravaggio, pointing out the similarity in the treatment of the flesh to the Sleeping Cupid , recognised as by the artist and dating from his Malta period. The painting has been badly damaged, especially in the landscape. The work is known in two other variants, each slightly different. The theme of the young John drinking from a spring reflects the Gospel tradition that the Baptist drank only water during his period in the wilderness. The painting displays typically Caravaggist extreme chiaroscuro (use of light and shadow), and is also typical in taking a young John the Baptist as its subject, this time set in a dark landscape against an ominous patch of lighter sky. "The mechanics of drinking and the psychology of thirst are beautifully conveyed through the artful manipulation of limbs and the carefully constructed head." (John Gash). If it is in fact by the artist, it would have been painted during his approximately 15 months in Malta in 1607-1608. His recognised works from this period include such masterpieces as the Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page and The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist .

The latter, in the oratory of the Co-Cathedral of Saint John, is the only work that the artist signed. In Malta Caravaggio was accepted into the Order of Saint John (the Knights of Malta ) and became in effect their official artist, but his stay ended with a mysterious offense and his expulsion from the Order "as a foul and rotten limb". The crime on Malta has been the subject of much speculation, but seems to have extremely serious, possibly even involving the death penalty. Most modern writers believe that it was a crime of violence. His earliest biographer, Giovanni Baglione , said that there had been a "disagreement" with a knight of justice (i.e., a knight drawn from the European nobility); Giovan Pietro Bellori , who visited Malta to see the Beheading of John the Baptist some fifty years after the event, wrote that Caravaggio "had come into conflict with a very noble knight", as a result of which he had incurred the displeasure of the Grand Master and had to flee. It is possible that the offence involved a duel, which was regarded very seriously - but the penalty for duelling was imprisonment, not death.

The death penalty was imposed for murder - and a death in a duel or brawl equated to murder - but the wording used by both Baglione and Bellori implied that the knight Caravaggio offended had survived. Peter Robb , in his popular biography M , (1998), makes the case for a sexual misdemeanour, but his argument is speculative. John the Baptist, 159 cm × 124 cm (63 in × 49 in) Location Galleria Borghese, Rome The date of the John the Baptist in the Galleria Borghese is disputed: it was long thought to have been acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese some time between his own arrival in Rome in 1605 and Caravaggio's flight from the city in 1606, but Roberto Longhi dated it to the artist's Sicilian period (a date post-1608) on the basis of similarities in handling and colour. Lonhi's view has gained increasing acceptance, with a consensus in favour of 1610 emerging in recent years. The painting shows a boy slumped against a dark background, where a sheep nibbles at a dull brown vine.

The boy is immersed in a reverie: perhaps as Saint John he is lost in private melancholy, contemplating the coming sacrifice of Christ; or perhaps as a real-life street-kid called on to model for hours he is merely bored. As so often with Caravaggio, the sense is of both at once. But the overwhelming feeling is of sorrow. The red cloak envelopes his puny childish body like a flame in the dark, the sole touch of colour apart from the pale flesh of the juvenile saint. "Compared with the earlier Capitolina and Kansas City versions...the Borghese picture is more richly colouristic - an expressive essay in reds, whites, and golden browns. It also represents a less idealised and more sensuous approach to the male nude, as prefigured in the stout-limbed figures of certain of Caravaggio's post-Roman works, such as the Naples Flagellation and the Valletta Beheading of John the Baptist." (John Gash, see references below).

Borghese was a discriminating collector but notorious for extorting and even stealing pieces that caught his eye - he, or rather his uncle Pope Paul V , had recently imprisoned Giuseppe Cesari, one of the best-known and most successful painters in Rome, on trumped-up charges in order to confiscate his collection of a hundred and six paintings, which included three of the Caravaggios today displayed in the Galleria Borghese ( Boy Peeling Fruit , Young Sick Bacchus , and Boy with a basket of Fruit ). They joined the Caravaggios that the Cardinal already possessed, including a Saint Jerome and the Madonna and Child with St. Anne (the Grooms' Madonna). By 1610 Caravaggio's life was unravelling. It's always dangerous to interpret an artist's works in terms of his life, but in this case the temptation is overwhelming, and every writer on Caravaggio seems to surrender to it.

In 1606 he had fled Rome as an outlaw after killing a man in a street fight; in 1608 he had been thrown into prison in Malta and again escaped; through 1609 he had been pursued across Sicily by his enemies until taking refuge in Naples, where he had been attacked in the street by unknown assailants within days of his arrival. Now he was under the protection of the Colonna family in the city, seeking a pardon that would allow him to return to Rome. The power to grant the pardon lay in the hands of the art-loving Cardinal Borghese, who would expect to be paid in paintings. News that the pardon was imminent arrived in mid-year, and the artist set out by boat with three canvasses. The next news was that he had died "of a fever" in Porto Ercole, a coastal town north of Rome held by Spain.

John the Baptist (St John the Baptist Reclining), 106 cm × 179.5 cm (42 in × 70.7 in) Location Private collection This Reclining John the Baptist, discovered in Argentina, remains disputed and should perhaps be described as attributed, but it is accepted by Peter Robb in his 1998 biography of Caravaggio. It is now in a private collection in Munich. The reasons for thinking it may be by Caravaggio, apart from the style and subject matter, are as follows: in July 1610, following news of Caravaggio's death, the bishop of Caserta wrote to Cardinal Scipione Borghese that three paintings by the artist were in the Naples palazzo of the Marchesa of Caravaggio. They were two Saint Johns and a Magdalene. The paintings had been intended for Borghese and he instructed the Marchesa to look after them for him.

Unfortunately for Borghese they were seized two days later by the head of the Knights of Malta in Naples, on the grounds that Caravaggio was a knight of the Order and all his possessions devolved on the Knights - which all involved must have known to be untrue, as Caravaggio had been expelled from the Order in 1608. The newly arrived Spanish Viceroy of Naples heard of the affair, but, believing the paintings were in Porto Ercole, wrote to the head of the Spanish garrison there telling him that the Knights had no right to them and that they should be returned to the Viceroy, "in particular the painting of John the Baptist." There is no certain knowledge of what happened to the various paintings after that point. Cardinal Borghese got the Youth with a Ram, but more than a year later. The other two paintings - the Magdalene and the second Baptist - disappeared, but it is possible, though unproven, that the Viceroy may have managed to secure the other Baptist. He would presumably have taken it back to Spain, and from there it could have made its way to South America.

All this, however, is speculation - it needs to be pointed out that no-one knows the exact identity of the paintings involved. Caravaggio never showed any of his figures in open daylight, but instead found a way to place them in the darkness of a closed room, putting a lamp high so that the light would fall straight down, revealing the principal part of the body and leaving the rest in shadow so as to produce a powerful contrast of light and dark. The painters in Rome were greatly taken by this novelty, and the young ones particularly gathered around him, praised him as the unique imitator of nature, and looked on his work as miracles. [3] Shadows, he felt, offered shelter as can four walls and a roof. Whatever and wherever he painted he really painted interiors. Sometimes - for The Flight into Egypt or one of his beloved John the Baptists - he was obliged to include a landscape in the background. But these landscapes are like rugs or drapes hung up on a line across an inner courtyard. He only felt at home - no, that he felt nowhere - he only felt relatively at ease inside. ... A body flares with light in an interior of darkness. The surroundings - the world outside the window - can be forgotten.

Only the worst news can come from there. The desired body disclosed in the darkness - which is not a question of the time of day or night but of life as it is on this planet - the desired body, disclosed like an apparition, beckons beyond, not by provocative gesture but by the undisguised fact of its own sentience, promising the universe lying on the far side of that skin, calling you to leave. [4] References

Question: John the Baptist lived in the wilderness of Judea between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, "his raiment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins; and his meat was ..." what?
Answer: Locusts and wild honey