Baptistry ★

The Battistero di San Giovanni, Siena. (Photo by Gaspra)

The Siena cathedral's baptistry is a riot of medieval frescoes and a catalog of greatest early Renaissance sculptors

The baptismal font (Photo by Francesco Gasparetti).Down a steep set of stairs behind the Duomo's right flank (just through the arch arch by the Museo Metropolitana), the baptistery's dark ceiling is a phantasmagoria of medeival frecoes—look for the crocodile.

The baptismal font in the center of the room is girded by a who's-who gallery of low-relief bronze panels crafted by the greatest of local late Gothic/early Renaissance sculptors, including Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Arnolfo di Cambio. In order (not of casting, but of the life story of St. John the Baptist), the panels are:

• "Annunciation to Zacharias" by Jacopo della Quercia (1428-1429)
• "Birth of John the Baptist" by Giovanni di Turino (1427)
• "Baptist Preaching" by Giovanni di Turino (1427)
• "Baptism of Christ" by Ghiberti (1427)
• "Arrest of John the Baptist" by Ghiberti and Giuliano di Ser Andrea
• "The Feast of Herod" by Donatello (1427)

Feast of Herod, Donatello (1427).Pay particular attention to that last panel, Dontaello's Feast of Herod, which arguably marks the first use of perspective in art. In this case, Donatello etched thin lines into the bronze to create the illusion that the (extremely low) relief extends back into space. This was less 3D sculpting than it was simply drawing on the flat bronze surface; it would be years before painters like Masaccio adapted the same technique to fresco.

Tips

Share this page

Search ReidsItaly.com