The Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistery of St John) is believed to be the oldest building in Florence. It is particularly famed for its three sets of magnificent and artistically important bronze doors.

It stands in the Piazza del Duomo, just to the west of the Duomo. It is believed to date from the 6th or 7th century and was the city's first cathedral, predating Santa Reparata , first recorded as such in 897. It used to be believed that it was originally an ancient Roman temple to Mars, although it is actually almost certainly not a Roman building.

The Baptistery is clad in geometrically patterned marble, reworked in Romanesque style between 1059 and 1128. The exterior is also ornamented with a number of artistically significant statues by Andrea Sansovino, Giovan Franceso Rustici , Vincenzo Danti and others.

In 1329, Andrea Pisano was awarded the commission to design the first set of doors. The doors, which were completed in 1336, consist of quatrefoil panels, most of which depict scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist. Originally installed on the east side, facing the Duomo, they were later moved to the south side.

In 1401, a competition was announced to design new doors for the baptistery. Seven sculptors competed, including Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Jacopo della Quercia, with Ghiberti winning the commission. It took Ghiberti 21 years (1403-1424) to complete these doors. These gilded bronze doors consist of twenty-eight panels, with each depicting a biblical scene from the New Testament. Originally installed on the east side, in place of Pisano's doors, they were later moved to the north side. They are described by Antonio Paolucci as "the most important event in the history of Florentine art in the first quarter of the 15th century".

Ghiberti followed this up with a second set of doors, on which he and his workshop (including Michelozzo and Benozzo Gozzoli) toiled for almost thirty years (1425-1452). These had ten panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament, and were in turn installed on the east side. Michelangelo referred to these doors as fit to be the "Gates of Paradise", and they are still invariably referred to by this name. Giorgio Vasari described them a century later as "undeniably perfect in every way and must rank as the finest masterpiece ever created"; Ghiberti himself said they were "the most singular work that I have ever made".

The "Gates of Paradise" now on the Baptistery are gilded bronze reproductions, placed there in 1990 after it was determined that the originals were deteriorating, and could only be saved if they were moved indoors. The originals are housed nearby in the Museo del Opera del Duomo .

The interior is clad in black and white marble and is crowned by a magnificent mosaic ceiling. The earliest mosaics date from 1225, but they were probably not completed until the 14th century. It depicts the Last Judgment, the rewards of the saved, and the punishments of the damned. This last part is particularly famous: evil doers are burnt by fire, roasted on spits, crushed with stones, bit by snakes, gnawed and chewed by hideous beasts. Dante Alighieri grew up looking at these mosaics.

The mosaic pavement was begun in 1209. The building contains the tomb of the Antipope John XXIII, designed by Donatello and his pupil Michelozzo.

Further reading

• Antonio Paolucci, Franco Cosimo (editors), "The Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence" (Braziller, New York, 1994)
• Antonio Paolucci, (translated Francoise Pouncey Chiarini), "The Origins of Renaissance Art: The Baptistery Doors, Florence" (Braziller, New York, 1996) - Covers all three doors (Pisano's, and both of Ghiberti's) in great detail, with excellent pictures

External links

• The Baptistery
• The Baptistery Doors

Images of the Baptistery