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At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the registers above the doors of the Florence Baptistery were filled by three decaying marble groups, carved in the shop of Tino di Camaino. Over the north door was St John the Baptist Preaching to a Levite and a Pharise, over the south door was the Baptism of Christ, and over the east door, above the Porta del Paradiso, was the Baptist with figures of the Virtues and St Michael.
In 1502 it was decided by the Arte de' Mercanti that marble figures of Christ and the Baptist should be commissioned to replace Tino di Camaino's Baptism, and installed over the east, not the south, door. The figures were entrusted to Andrea Sansovino. In 1506 a second large group was commissioned to replace the Preaching of St John over the north door. The medium of the new group was bronze, and it was allotted to Giovanni Francesco Rustici, who completed it in 1511. A third group, the Decollation of the Baptist, was commissioned for the south door almost 60 years later from Vincenzo Danti.
In the period following his return from Portugal to Italy, Sansovino became established as a sculptor of large-scale figures. He gained two important commissions for monumental marble figural groups, a Baptism (1502) for the east doors of the Baptistery of Florence Cathedral and at about the same time a Virgin and Child and St John the Baptist, both for Genoa Cathedral (in situ). These figures, his first to demonstrate the Classical canon of anatomical proportion and pose, are notable for their nobility, dignity and grace.
The wall of the Baptistery above the entrances was covered with polychrome arcading, and height of the statues was determined by the height of the arcade. The wall surface made it impossible to build external niches which would isolate the groups, and instead it was decided, in the case of the Baptism of Christ, to construct a simple tabernacle, comprising an entablature supported on two columns, planned as a background, not as a containing niche.
The picture shows the original setting of the group over the east entrance of the Baptistery.
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