The left hand of the figure points in the direction in which he is moving, while his eyes and face is directed backwards, towards rays of sacred light in the sky. The iconography of this figure is less firmly determined, as red robes of this kind could be worn by several different Biblical characters in the paintings executed around this time. The same holds true of the cross carried in the figure’s right hand. Even so, it seems unlikely that the figure is a depiction of Saint Philip: the cross seems to be a reed cross, which points towards the iconography traditionally associated with John the Baptist.
The Spanish painter-writer Francisco Pacheco (1564–1644), who was father-in-law to Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660), provides very accurate iconographic instructions in his art treatise El Arte de la Pintura (1649). Pacheco draws on Italian, Spanish and Latin sources for his detailed instructions on how artists should portray a given holy figure. His directions on how to correctly depict John the Baptist matches Troppa’s portrayal well.
Pacheco writes in great detail about the iconography of John the Baptist. He should be portrayed as a man between 29 and 30 years of age, for that was when he found his calling and began to preach, i.e. the time when he left his parents behind in order to set out into the wilderness to live as an hermit. Alternatively he should be portrayed as a mature man, ‘when the heavens noted him with remarkable splendour and he began to preach about the regime of the heavenly kingdom and the coming of our Saviour on the banks of the river Jordan’.
According to Pacheco there is nothing wrong with artists adorning their paintings of John the Baptist in the traditional manner by attiring him in a purplish cloak as a symbol of his glorious martyrdom. Pacheco recommends that John the Baptist should be depicted with the cross-staff as his attribute, for just as Jesus was always aware of his impending martyrdom on the cross ever since childhood, so too was John the Baptist. Hence he always carried the cross with him, using it as an object of contemplation and meditation, Pacheco states.
