The biographies of Michelangelo by Vasari (1550) and Condivi (1553) recount that following the artist’s return to Florence from Bologna in 1495, his first commission was for a marble sculpture of a “San Giovannino” for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’Medici (cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent), now identified as the present work. Rather than following the model of Donatello’s Saint John the Baptist (Florence, Museo del Bargello) as other Florentine sculptors had done, Michelangelo depicted the Baptist as much younger, no more than a boy of six or seven. Looking to the example of Hellenistic Greek sculpture, he supported the left leg against a rock, creating elegant oblique lines through its slight bend, an aesthetic resource that he would deploy in other works. The bent arms, slightly tilted head and emphasis on the nude body all recall models from the classical sculpture so admired by the artist. There are evident compositional similarities between this figure and other works by Michelangelo, including the small Saint John the Baptist in the unfinished painting known as The Manchester Madonna (London, National Gallery, ca.1496) and the sculpture of Bacchus with a Satyr in the Museo del Bargello (1497-98).