Leonardo - St John Baptist

The drawing shows a muscular, long-haired male figure sitting on a stone ledge with his legs crossed. He holds a thin staff in his left hand and points toward his chest with his right, looking directly at the viewer with a subtle expression. The surrounding environment is a dense, rocky landscape with tangled foliage and distant mountains.

This work represents the Renaissance syncretism between Christian and pagan traditions, where the ascetic prophet St. John is visually conflated with the Greco-Roman god Bacchus. This fusion reflects Neoplatonic ideas regarding the 'divine madness' (furor divinus) shared by both the prophet and the mystic, a concept central to the circles of Marsilio Ficino.