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Ordinary Time · Nativity of St John the Baptist: Mass · Year B

Luke 1:57-66, 80

The Birth and Naming of John

Birth of St. John the Baptist, Domenico Ghirlandaio
Birth of St. John the Baptist, Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1486–1490Tornabuoni Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
In the Tornabuoni chapel. The birth is a Florentine lying-in, with a visitor in contemporary dress sweeping in from the right and a servant carrying fruit on her head.It is the reading, painted as the domestic event it was, with the neighbours arriving.Domenico GhirlandaioA Florentine fresco painter who ran one of the busiest workshops in the city and had the young Michelangelo as an apprentice. He put his patrons and their neighbours into sacred scenes, in the clothes they actually wore.Tornabuoni Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, FlorenceThe choir chapel of Florence's Dominican church, frescoed by Ghirlandaio for a banking family who put themselves in every scene.Tornabuoni Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Overview & Insights

"His name is John." (Luke 1:63)

Elizabeth gives birth, and against custom the child is named John as the angel directed. When Zechariah confirms the name in writing his speech returns, and all who hear wonder what this child will become.

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