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It is ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST who, next to the angels, seems to have been the first admitted to a propinquity with the divine persons.  In Greek art, he is himself an angel, a messenger, and often represented with wings.  He was especially venerated in the Greek Church in his character of precursor of the Redeemer, and, as such, almost indispensable in every sacred group; and it is, perhaps, to the early influence of Greek art on the selection and arrangement of the accessory personages, that we owe the preeminence of John the Baptist.  One of the most graceful, and appropriate, and familiar of all the accessory figures grouped with the Virgin and Child, is that of the young St. John (called in Italian San Giovannino, and in Spanish San Juanito.) When first introduced, we find him taking the place of the singing or piping angels in front of the throne.  He generally stands, “clad in his raiment of camel’s hair, having a girdle round his loins,” and in his hand a reed cross, round which is bound a scroll with the words “Ecce Agnus Dei” ("Behold the Lamb of God"), while with his finger he points up to the enthroned group above him, expressing the text from St. Luke (c. ii.), “And thou, CHILD shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest,” as in Francia’s picture in our National Gallery.  Sometimes he bears a lamb in his arms, the Ecce Agnus Dei in form instead of words.

The introduction of the young St. John becomes more and more usual from the beginning of the sixteenth century.  In later pictures, a touch of the dramatic is thrown into the arrangement:  instead of being at the foot of the throne, he is placed beside it; as where the Virgin is throned on a lofty pedestal, and she lays one hand on the head of the little St. John, while with the other she strains her Child to her bosom; or where the infant Christ and St. John, standing at her knee, embrace each other—­a graceful incident in a Holy Family, but in the enthroned Madonna it impairs the religious conception; it places St. John too much on a level with the Saviour, who is here in that divine character to which St. John bore witness, but which he did not share.  It is very unusual to see John the Baptist in his childish character glorified in heaven among the celestial beings:  I remember but one instance, in a beautiful picture by Bonifazio. (Acad.  Venice.) The Virgin is seated in glory, with her Infant on her knee, and encircled by cherubim; on one side an angel approaches with a basket of flowers on his head, and she is in act to take these flowers and scatter them on the saints below,—­a new and graceful motif:  on the other side sits John the Baptist as a boy about twelve years of age.  The attendant saints below are St. Peter, St. Andrew, St. Thomas holding the girdle,[1] St. Francis, and St. Clara, all looking up with ecstatic devotion, except St. Clara, who looks down with a charming modesty.