San Giovanni (Saint John the Baptist) and the sacred bonds of loyalty and friendship

24th June.

Saint John the Baptist is one of my favourite Saints for many reasons: one is private and I keep it safe in my life's secret drawer, while I will give the other reasons in this new article.

I am a very lapsed Catholic and I have never been a "parisheep", i. e., a sheep in a flock of parishioners: I consider myself more a Jewish-Christian, with some affinity with the Italian Waldensian Church, except for its refusal of religious images, because the history of Western art would have been poorer, without the Catholic Church patronage of art and artists (even Italian Jews were influenced by Catholic iconography, as it can be seen at the MAHJ, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme, in Paris, where there are many Hebrew illustrated Bibles) and all the imagery wich represents one of the many figurative and cultural pillars which makes the variety and the richness of European history.

Religious themes and stories have always been a source of inspiration for artists, musicians and writers, and the life and death of Saint John the Baptist, Jewish preacher who lived in the early Ist century AD and was active in the Jordan River area, are particularly inspirational for all of them.

Miraculous child of the priest Zachary and his wife