The Christ Child and the Infant John the Baptist

... have pictures of saintly children or young virgins in the home, in which your child, still in swaddling clothes, may take delight and thereby be gladdened by acts and sights pleasing to childhood. Cardinal Giovanni Dominici, On the Education of Children c. 1410 Images of the infants Jesus and John were widely popular in Renaissance Florence. The two boys embrace, mirroring the innocent play of the children whose parents Dominici advised. This emphasis on the human encourages our empathy. Botticelli rejected overt symbolism: John once offered Jesus a rose – a reference to his suffering and death – yet the artist later removed it and only a faint trace now remains. Only Jesus’ strange disengagement may suggest his destiny. While the subtle concept was Botticelli’s, he delegated its execution to his workshop.