John the Baptist as a boy

This figure of John the Baptist rendered as a boy holds a tall bronze cross in his right hand (missing in this cast). The original sculpture surmounts a marble doorway in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, the culmination of a scheme undertaken by Benedetto da Maiano in 1472 to divide the Sala Grande on the second floor into an anteroom and an audience chamber. Benedetto designed the doorway in collaboration with his brother, Giuliano (1432-90) but was solely responsible for the figurative parts of the door surround.