The Florence Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of Saint John, the patron saint of Florence, is a religious building that stands in Piazza del Duomo, across from the Florence Cathedral and the Campanile di Giotto. Its origins are in part mysterious. History It was long believed that the Baptistry was originally a Roman temple…
The Gates of Paradise is the main gate of the Baptistry of Florence (Battistero di San Giovanni), located in front of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.
The Porta del Paradiso, in Italian, was created by Florentine goldsmith and sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti between 1425 and 1452 and installed in the eastern portal of the Baptistery.
The Gates have been praised by generations of artists and art historians for their compelling portrayal of scenes from the Old Testament.
Over time, the seventeen-foot-tall, three-ton bronze doors became an icon of Renaissance, one of the most famous works of art in the world.
The workmanship of panels demonstrates that the Florentine artists had mastered linear perspective and the classical idiom by the early 15th century.
According to The Lives of the Artist by Giorgio Vasari, the door—once known just as the East Door—was named the Gates of Paradise by Michelangelo Buonarroti because of its striking beauty.
The south doors of the Florence Baptistry hides messages that have been discovered only recently. In particular, the decoration of the frame contains a warning against the use of certain hallucinogenic plants, those used today to make certain drugs. To make the discovery, the Italian scholar Mauro Di Vito of the University of Pisa analyzed…
The clock of the Duomo in Florence is one of the oldest functional mechanical clocks. The dial is a fresco painted by one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance, Paolo Uccello. The clock is one of only a few examples in the world that marks the Italic hour, measuring time from sunset to sunset. Thus, “Paolo Uccello’s clock” is both a timepiece and a work of art.
Robert Langdon, the main character in Dan Brown’s Inferno, in describing the Baptistry of Florence was attracted to the suspended tomb of Antipope Giovanni XXIII (John XXIII). To Langdon, it seems that the antipope’s body lies in repose high up on the wall like a cave dweller or a subject in a magician’s levitation trick.
The real name of this tomb made of marble and bronze is Baldassare Coscia. It was created, according to the art historians, by the Italian sculptors Donatello and Michelozzo for the Florence Baptistry.
LEGEND PROCLAIMS THAT it is physically impossible, upon entering the Baptistry of San Giovanni, not to look up. Langdon, despite having been in this room many times, now felt the mystical pull of the space, and let his gaze climb skyward to the ceiling.
