Saint John the Baptist
c. 1505
Medium
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 34.2 × 23.8 cm (13 1/2 × 9 3/8 in.); Sheet: 35.6 × 24.7 cm (14 1/16 × 9 3/4 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
18602
Art Historical Context
**Saint John the Baptist** *Giulio Campagnola,. 1505* Engraving in black on ivory laid paper *Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings Department* Behold the ascetic figure of Saint John the Baptist rendered with masterful precision by Giulio Campagnola, pioneering Italian engraver active in early 16th-century Venice Dated around 1505, this engraving captures the saint—precursor to Christ—in a moment of profound spirituality, likely evoking his wilderness life with symbolic attributes like the staff or lamb. Campagnola, influenced by Venetian masters such as Giorgione, bridged pain...
About the Artist
Giulio Campagnola · 1482–1515
Giulio Campagnola (c. 1482–c. 1515) was born in Padua, within the Republic of Venice, to Girolamo Campagnola, a noted humanist scholar and writer who may have been an amateur painter. Exceptionally gifted from youth, by age fifteen he was praised as a poet, musician, linguist in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and skilled in painting, engraving, and gem-cutting, prompting efforts to secure him a positio...