An Art Lover's Guide to Florence

3. The Cathedral Baptistery

Chapter 3 The CaThEdraL BapTISTErY hISTOrY OF ThE BuILdING N o building in Florence is older or more revered than the cathedral baptistery. Florentines of the renaissance, intent on glorifying their city’s past and perhaps further persuaded by the eighteen massive classical columns that help support the interior, insisted the baptistery was an ancient roman building later taken over for Christian use. Although modern scholarship long ago refuted that claim, the actual date of its founding remains uncertain. It was probably built in the sixth or seventh century but maybe as early as the fourth or fifth. The building was reconstructed in 1059, and the geometrical decoration in colored marble on the exterior was carried out between that date and the 1200s. Within the spacious interior an unusually large dome displays an extensive cycle of thirteenthcentury mosaics, the only such cycle in Florence, illustrating Old and New Testament stories as well as a Last Judgment. It seems more than mere coincidence that this building was the first one chosen for adornment when the new century of the 1400s opened. Far more than the still incomplete cathedral, the baptistery was the heart of Florence. This was where citizens of all classes brought their children to be baptized, the ritual that signified their entrance into both the community of the faithful and the commune of Florence. The date of the competition to provide the baptistery with a new set of bronze doors—won by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1401—marks the birth of the renaissance, and Ghiberti’s second set of doors, known as the Gates of Paradise, show that movement in full bloom. Ghiberti ’s masterpieces have as their worthy fourteenth-century predecessor the Baptistery of Florence cathedral, south view. scala / Art resource, NY 52 aN arT LOVEr’S GuIdE TO FLOrENCE baptistery’s first set of bronze doors, by Andrea Pisano, depicting scenes from the life of John the Baptist. And it’s no accident, either, that the executors of the will of the deposed anti-pope John XXIII, long a supporter of Florence, chose the baptistery as the site for the former pontiff’s tomb, a political statement of Florence’s support for his aborted papacy. ThE ThrEE SETS OF BrONzE dOOrS Doors by Andrea Pisano The 1330s were a period of relative peace and prosperity for Florence, a decade when several major projects were underway: work on the unfinished cathedral resumed in 1331, and construction of the cathedral’s bell tower started in 1334. shortly before that, in 1330, Andrea Pisano began a set of bronze doors, although they weren’t put in place on the main (east) entrance of the baptistery until 1336. They now adorn the baptistery’s south entrance. The artist signed and dated his doors in an inscription along the top: “ANDreAs UGOLINI NINI De PIsIs Me FeCIT A D MCCCXXX” (“Andrea son of Ugolino son of Nino of Pisa made me in the Year of the Lord 1330”). Andrea’s doors contain twenty episodes from the life of John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence, along with eight panels showing theological and cardinal Virtues. The doors should be read from top to bottom, first on the left side and then on the right. On the left are ten episodes concerning the public life and preaching of the Baptist, while the right door displays ten scenes of John’s martyrdom and subsequent events, ending with the saint’s burial. The Virtues occupy the eight lower panels. The compositions are simple and sturdy, with figures highlighted in gold set against rudimentary landscapes and buildings. The pair of doors illustrates the two aspects of John the Baptist: his role as the last prophet and his fate as the first martyr. Florentines were deeply devoted to their patron saint, and they must have been impressed by this detailed celebration of his life and death. Ghiberti’s First Set of Doors Florence thrived on fierce competitiveness in business, politics, and the arts. shortly after 1400, as the city continued its recovery from the deadly epidemic of bubonic plague that had devastated much of europe half a century The Cathedral Baptistery 53 earlier and celebrated the ending in 1398 of a bitter conflict with the duchy of Milan, government officials encouraged the commissioning of civic art. Unaware that the problem with Milan would flare up again in even more deadly form just a few years later...