Baptistery of San Giovanni (Gates of Paradise)

The Baptistery of San Giovanni in Piazza San Giovanni, Florence, is one of the oldest and most historically important religious buildings in Tuscany and the finest example of Florentine Romanesque architecture in existence. Dedicated to St John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence, the octagonal building stands on the site of a Roman structure and was constructed in its present form mainly in the 11th and 12th centuries, with interior mosaic decoration extending into the 13th century. Medieval Florentines — including Dante Alighieri, who referenced the Baptistery in the Commedia — believed it had originally been a Roman temple to Mars, an incorrect but revealing misconception that illustrates the prestige ancient monuments commanded during the medieval period. The building served as the cathedral of Florence until the present Duomo was consecrated in 1436, and all Florentines, including every member of the Medici family, were baptised within its walls for centuries. The exterior is clad in alternating bands of white Carrara marble and green Prato marble arranged in geometric panels, a hallmark of the Florentine Romanesque style shared with the Campanile and the Duomo facade. The building's three sets of bronze doors constitute an extraordinary programme of public sculpture spanning four centuries. The South Doors by Andrea Pisano (1330-1336) depict 28 gilded bronze panels showing the life of St John the Baptist and the Virtues — the first great bronze doors cast in Italy since antiquity. The North Doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti (1403-1424) resulted from the celebrated 1401 competition in which Ghiberti defeated Filippo Brunelleschi and five other sculptors, a contest widely cited as the symbolic beginning of the Italian Renaissance. Ghiberti's East Doors (1425-1452), ten large gilded bronze panels depicting Old Testament scenes from Adam and Eve to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, use revolutionary pictorial perspective to create architectural depth and atmospheric distance. Michelangelo famously described these doors as worthy to be the Gates of Paradise, a name universally adopted since. The original panels are now displayed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo to protect them from pollution; faithful gilded replicas occupy the doorways today. Inside, the entire dome is covered with 13th-century Byzantine mosaics executed by Venetian and Florentine workshops between approximately 1225 and 1330 — one of the most complete surviving Byzantine mosaic programmes in Italy, centring on a monumental Christ in Judgement roughly nine metres tall. The floor preserves elaborate 12th-century marble mosaic inlay with Zodiac and geometric patterns.