Cathedral of Ragusa: 1 Chapel of San Giovanni Battista
Work of the Ragusan master Carmelo Licitra, known as Giuppino, the wooden statue of Saint John the Baptist was sculpted in 1861.
The sculptor drew his inspiration from reality and imagining the Saint, wandering in the desert, he wanted to portray him with hard and severe features, dug by the sun and starvation (legend tells that he drew inspiration from the face of a beggar who wandered around of the cathedral and which disappeared immediately after having inspired the artist, so as to suggest a divine sign).
Dressed in camel skins and covered with a red mantle which symbolizes his royalty and prefigures martyrdom, he holds in his left hand the Book of the Apocalypse, surmounted by a lamb, symbol of Christ; with his right hand he points to the lamb, reminding us of the Gospel passage: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold the one who takes away the sin of the world".
Around his neck, a sumptuous gold medallion, a metaphor of his glory. The golden base that supports the statue is characterized by naturalistic elements and decorative coats of arms, with Latin inscriptions referring to the Baptist, supported by joyful little angels that the sculptor Licitra probably created by taking his own daughters as a model, still infants.
