Preaching of St John the Baptist

Vasari wrote that Rustici liked Leonardo's style, the psychological atmosphere of his faces and the grace of his compositions, and 'attached himself to him', learning how to cast bronze, draw in perspective and carve marble, although the last skill was not one that he could have learnt from Leonardo. On his major commission, the St John the Baptist Preaching, Rustici worked closely with the master.

The work comprises three separate bronze statues, designed as a psychologically interactive group, set against the patterned, external wall of the Baptistery, over the north portal. The two artists were guests in the same house at the time, and must have collaborated closely, for the bronze statues are composed, modelled and characterized with all the confidence and vigour of Leonardo. The contrasting heads of John's audience, Levite and Pharisee, are unforgettable: the one gross and bald (deliberately recalling Donatello's Habakkuk on the Campanile near by), and the other with a magnificently tousled mane of hair and beard, which he tugs in a gesture of annoyance (like Michelangelo's slightly later statue of Moses.

The picture shows the original setting of the statues above the north doors of the Baptistery.