The story of John the Baptist’s birth occurs uniquely in the Gospel of Luke (1:57–66). It is intertwined, literally and metaphorically, with the birth of Christ, which it prefigures and parallels. Both infants are miraculously conceived, by women respectively ‘barren’ (v.7) and a virgin, to fulfil God’s plan for the salvation of humankind. Underscoring his role as Christ’s ‘forerunner’, John’s nativity immediately precedes that of Christ (2:1–20). His role as precursor is also explicit in the words of his father Zechariah, which immediately follow the account of John’s naming and birth: ‘Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Most High; For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to make ready his ways, to give salvation unto his people’ (1:76–77, Authorised Version).

Although a discrete episode, the significance of the birth of the Baptist is only fully understood within the wider Gospel narrative. Viewers of the Byzantine miniature and Lorenzo and Jacopo Salimbeni’s fresco would, respectively, have experienced the Birth scene as part of the Gospel text, and as part of a pictorial cycle of the Life of the Baptist on the walls of the oratory. For viewers of Rogier van der Weyden’s altarpiece, the episodes depicted in the architectural sculpture painted on the portal flesh out the story, providing important narrative context. Particularly relevant are the first two episodes: the angel Gabriel telling the childless Zechariah that his elderly wife will conceive a son, to be called John, and the incredulous Zechariah leaving the Temple after he is rendered mute. Also shown is the Visitation, when Mary visits Elizabeth. It is on hearing Mary’s greeting that Elizabeth recognizes her as the mother of God; the baby in her own womb ‘leaps’ and she is ‘filled with the Holy Ghost’ (1:41, Authorised Version). Taken together, these episodes are stories about faith: Zechariah is temporarily punished for his disbelief; Elizabeth praised for keeping faith: ‘Blessed is she that believed’ (1:45, Authorised Version).

Faith is also at the heart of the naming episode, which is depicted in all three images. When Zechariah still cannot speak, it is Elizabeth who declares the infant’s name to be John, rather than agreeing to have him called after his father, as was customary. Likewise, it is immediately after Zechariah confirms the name in writing that his lips are unsealed. Recognizing the miracle of John’s birth, he is enabled to foretell his son’s divinely appointed role (1:67–79) in words that evoke those of Isaiah (40:3), and which recur in Gospel narratives of the adult Baptist (Matthew 3:3; John 1:23). Zechariah’s words were later adopted into the Latin liturgy as the Benedictus.

In each of these artworks, John’s birth is depicted in contemporary settings that suggest high social status. This is possibly an allusion to the status of Zechariah the priest, but probably also reflects that of the patrons. The most exalted is the opulent scene painted for the Byzantine imperial family, with its golden bathtub and magnificent cradle. Although less obviously extravagant, the settings depicted by the Salimbeni brothers and Rogier van der Weyden likewise evoke fifteenth-century Italian and Netherlandish elite residences, with their costly textiles and furniture, and (in Rogier’s painting) a chimneybreast and partially glazed windows. Dress similarly conveys status. In the Salimbeni fresco, Mary wears garments that suggest luxury silks: a patterned blue mantle, and a white dress embellished with gold motifs; in Rogier’s panel she wears a fur-lined dress over an underdress of red velvet and gold woven silk—a type of textile worn by royalty. In all three images, Elizabeth’s head is heavily veiled and (in Salimbeni and Rogier) wimpled, as was appropriate for an older woman, just as Zechariah is shown a venerable, grey-bearded man, underscoring the miracle of their parenthood.

The iconography of the Birth of the Baptist is exemplified by the twelfth-century Byzantine Master’s image, with its domestic details of the bedchamber, the attendant women, the bathing of the baby, and the figure of Zechariah sitting apart, penning the name. By the late Middle Ages, in Western Europe, texts other than the Gospel had begun to enrich its representation, as in the examples by the Salimbeni brothers and Rogier, whose images include Mary. Luke is ambiguous regarding Mary’s presence at the birth, saying simply that she stayed with Elizabeth for three months and then returned home. Her presence was debated by theologians including St Ambrose and the Venerable Bede, both of whom accepted it, as did more popular (and later) writers such Jacobus de Voragine, the author of the Golden Legend, and the Pseudo-Bonaventure, who described how Mary cradled the baby in her arms and kissed him. Her presence in these paintings reinforces the message of the birth of the Baptist as the prelude to the nativity and ministry of Christ.