The sudden genesis and extraordinary diffusion of the devotional figure of the child St. John the Baptist engages the dissertation of Stefanie Solum, a Ph.D. candidate in History of Art. Titled The Child Baptist: Representation and Salvation in Renaissance Florence, the dissertation reconstructs the cultural framework supporting a major iconographic innovation in fifteenthcentury Italian art and, using archival records, literary texts, and visual images, seeks to demonstrate the impact of women and family on the religious sensibilities of Florentine Renaissance culture.