Florence Baptistery

Florence Baptistery (Battistero di San Giovanni)

Mosaic-covered interior of the octagonal dome

The Florence Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of Saint John (Italian: Battistero di San Giovanni), is a religious building in Florence, Italy. Dedicated to the patron saint of the city, John the Baptist, it has been a focus of religious, civic, and artistic life since its completion. The octagonal baptistery stands in both the Piazza del Duomo and the Piazza San Giovanni, between Florence Cathedral and the Archbishop's Palace.

Until 1576 Florentines were baptized in a large baptismal font located at the center of the building. In that year Francesco I de’ Medici had it dismantled to make room for grand-ducal celebrations, an act deplored by Florentines at the time. Since then, baptisms have been performed using a small font beside the southeast wall.

The Baptistery serves as a focus for the city’s most important religious celebrations, including the Festival of Saint John held on June 24, still a legal holiday in Florence. In the past the Baptistery housed the insignia of Florence and the towns it conquered and offered a venue to honor individual achievement like victory in festival horse races. Poet Dante Alighieri was baptized there and hoped, in vain, that he would “return as poet and put on, at my baptismal font, the laurel crown.” The city walls begun in 1285 may have been designed so that the baptistery would be at the exact center of Florence, like the temple at the center of the New Jerusalem prophesied by Ezekiel.

The architecture of the Baptistery takes inspiration from the Pantheon, an ancient Roman temple, as observers have noted for at least 700 years, and yet it is also a highly original artistic achievement. The scholar Walter Paatz observed that the total effect of the Baptistery has no parallels at all. This singularity has made the origins of the Baptistery a centuries-long enigma, with hypotheses that it was originally a Roman temple, an early Christian church built by Roman master masons, or (the current scholarly consensus) a work of 11th- or 12th-century “proto-Renaissance” architecture. To Filippo Brunelleschi, it was a near-perfect building that inspired his studies of perspective and his approach to architecture.

The Baptistery is also renowned for the works of art with which it is adorned, including its mosaics and its three sets of bronze doors with relief sculptures. Andrea Pisano oversaw the creation of the south doors, while Lorenzo Ghiberti led the workshops that sculpted the north and east doors. Michelangelo said the east doors were so beautiful that “they might fittingly stand at the gates of Paradise.” The building also contains the first Renaissance funerary monument, by Donatello and Michelozzo.

History

State of knowledge

Illustration from Villani's Nuova Cronica, imagining Totila razing the walls of Florence in the 6th century

Florentines once believed that the Baptistery was originally a Roman temple dedicated to Mars, or a remnant of the city’s rebirth after the Ostrogoths’ ravages. In the modern period skepticism mounted until these legends were abandoned in the nineteenth century, in part because excavations revealed that a very different structure, a large house, was present at the site in Roman times. A burial ground with rough-hewn stones from around the 7th century has also been discovered beneath a portion of the building.

No documents pertaining to the construction of the Baptistery have survived, and passing references to a church of Saint John the Baptist cannot establish its existence because the former Cathedral, now known only as Santa Reparata, was once also referred to as the church of Saint John the Baptist.

The overwhelming scholarly consensus today, based on its construction technique and architectural style, is that the origins of the Baptistery are to be found in the 11th or 12th century. Developing a more precise dating has been difficult because of two confounding indications in Ferdinando Leopoldo Del Migliore’s Firenze città nobilissima (1684). According to one, Pope Nicholas II consecrated the Baptistery in 1059; according to the other, a baptismal font was brought into the Baptistery in 1128. Scholars have struggled to make sense of two apparent markers of completion almost 70 years apart, many supposing one must be mistaken in whole or in part.

In the 2020s archival research among the manuscripts of Del Migliore and a close associate revealed that neither claim is accurate: the Baptistery was not consecrated in 1059, and no baptismal font was introduced in 1128. Del Migliore’s work has a history of not withstanding close scrutiny. Authorities started to notice errors in Firenze città nobilissima soon after it was published, and in the 20th century, a philologist demonstrated that Del Migliore falsified the existence of a medieval Florentine named Salvino degli Armati.

Determining a date for the Baptistery, therefore, depends entirely on relating the evidence inherent in the building itself to the broader context. In the 1930s, Walter Horn’s study of Florentine masonry technique (refinement of stone cutting, mortar application, course patterning) showed that the sandstone construction of the lower levels of the Baptistery was close to that of the church of Santi Apostoli and of the later portions of San Pier Scheraggio, both of which documents allow us to date to the 1060s or 1070s. It is not as refined as the later parts of San Miniato al Monte, datable to 1077-1115.

The appeal of the 1070s

A hypothesis published in 2024 proposes the early 1070s for the origins of the Baptistery. Not only is this grounded in the masonry evidence, it would explain a cryptic archeological finding in the 1970s. Excavations beneath the Piazza del Duomo uncovered two lime kilns, and radiocarbon dating of charcoal within them indicated a range of years centered around 1073. Since the cathedral had been renovated from the mid-1030s to mid-1050s, scholars have been unsure what large building project the kilns could have served in this later period. Del Migliore’s false constraints now removed, it seems plausible that it could have been the Baptistery.

An origin in this period would fit well with the historical context. In the 1060s, reformist Vallombrosian monks accused bishop Pietro Mezzabarba of Florence of simony, specifically of having obtained his office through a corrupt offering of money made by his father. Their accusations gained traction among Florentines, to the point that, according to Peter Damian, they no longer accepted the chrism Mezzabarba consecrated for the baptism of their children, and sought baptism elsewhere. This situation seems to have persisted for three years until 1068, when a Vallombrosian brother underwent a trial by fire in front of the Badia a Settimo to prove the righteousness of the monks’ accusations. His survival made the bishop’s position untenable, and Mezzabarba left Florence that summer.

View of the Baptistery from southwest with the scarsella on the west side

An ambitious building program that would restore the authority of the bishop and help ensure that he oversaw the communal baptism of Florentine infants on Holy Saturday, as canon law required, could plausibly have been a priority for both the Catholic Church and the rulers of the March of Tuscany, of which Florence was an important administrative and religious center. In the early 1070s Tuscany was ruled by Beatrice of Lorraine and her daughter Matilda of Tuscany, close allies of Pope Alexander II (d. 1073) and Pope Gregory VII (on the papal throne 1073-1085). These powerful figures would have had the capacity to sponsor a building as ambitious and costly as the Baptistery. In fact, it has been difficult to explain how “little Florence,” as Peter Damian called it, could have built such an extraordinary church. As one author recently argued, 11th-century Florence on its own seems unequal to the task “not only on an artistic level, but also economically, technically, and organizationally.”

The references the Baptistery makes to the Pantheon also support the hypothesis of the involvement of a pope. In the eleventh century, the Pantheon, converted to a church in 609, was officiated only on the most important holidays, and only for masses celebrated by the pope himself. Moreover, papal interest in the Roman empire was high. Pope Alexander II sponsored the construction of Sant'Alessandro Maggiore in Lucca, with ancient capitals and imitative medieval counterparts, and very likely a classicizing facade. The appearance of the demolished church of Santa Maria in Portico in Rome, consecrated by Pope Gregory VII in 1073, is unknown, but it had a Roman ara, a pagan altar, inscribed and repurposed for Christian use (now in Santa Galla, Rome). Church poetry compared Pope Gregory to Julius Caesar, and in a letter Gregory himself stated that the reach of the Church now exceeded that of the Roman Empire. The Church at this time also believed in the Donation of Constantine, according to which the pope inherited the temporal authority of the Roman emperor, justifying his equality with or supremacy over the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany. If interest in antiquity had arisen in Florence organically, one would expect more Florentine Romanesque churches to cite ancient buildings. Instead, parts of the Baptistery completed only a generation or two later, such as the interior gallery level, show a typically medieval delight in geometric and figurative ornament, foreign to the severe interior of the Pantheon.

The architect

Stylistic similarities suggest the same architect may have designed the Baptistery, Santi Apostoli, and San Miniato al Monte. The affinity of the plan of San Miniato (portion begun 1077) with that of the demolished church of Santa Maria in Portico (consecrated by Pope Gregory VII in 1073) could indicate the hand of the same architect, strengthening the case that the architect of the Baptistery came from the papal entourage in Rome. The presence on the Baptistery of a motif including a round-arched window flanked by windows with triangular tympani, also seen on the facade of the Basilica of San Salvatore, Spoleto, could possibly indicate that the architect had been to Umbria.

Octagonal design

Octagonal plan with a scarsella on the west

The octagon was a common shape for baptisteries since early Christian times. Other early examples are the fourth-century Battistero Paleocristiano excavated beneath Milan Cathedral and the fifth-century Lateran Baptistery. The eight-sidedness of these structures was significant. As Timothy Verdon writes, “while man’s earthly life unfolds in units of finite time like the week with its seven days, in Baptism believers pass over into eternal life, beyond measurable time. They enter into the ‘eighth day’.”

Although the plan of the Pantheon is circular, it can be divided into eight slices, and thus lends itself to reuse in an octagonal building.

Construction and pre-existences

Giovanni Villani records that the lantern atop the dome was completed in 1150. It is the first known example of this element in the history of architecture. but his stated archival source cannot be verified. The installation of the lantern in 1150 presupposes a broad dome, which likely would not have survived the removal of a semicircular apse from beneath it. Thus the scarsella may actually date shortly before 1150.

Thick walls beneath the floor of the Baptistery form an inner octagon whose size is approximated by the innermost portion of the Baptistery pavement. The purpose of these walls is obscure, but scholars have suggested that they were part of a smaller baptistery that preceded the current one, that they enclosed a full-immersion basin, or that they held up a ring of columns like in the Lateran Baptistery or Santo Sepolcro, Pisa.

Florence undoubtedly had a baptistery before the present one, but whether it existed at the same location, or was placed somewhere else near the cathedral (the Milan baptistery was behind the cathedral), is a matter of ongoing debate and inquiry.

Exterior

Design and Adornment

Painted cassone showing the Baptistery in the early 15th century, by Giovanni Toscani. Museo Nazionale del Bargello.

The Baptistery has eight sides ornamented with classical architectural elements over marble incrustation marked by two-color geometric patterns. A rectilinear apse called a scarsella expands out of the west side. The other sides are each adorned with three blind arches, of equal size on the intercardinal faces, and with an expanded central arch on the faces that include a doorway. Within these arches are windows with monumental surrounds modeled after the aedicules inside the Pantheon. Several different marbles are used, principally white Carrara marble and a green-black serpentinite from Prato. The architecture of this church would serve as an important influence for Renaissance architects including Filippo Brunelleschi and Leone Battista Alberti.

The zebra-stripe corners are not part of the original design, but were added in 1293, as work on the new cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore began. They covered blocks of sandstone, the stone used for the building structure. The porphyry columns on either side of the Gates of Paradise were plundered by the Pisans in Majorca and given in gratitude to the Florentines in 1117 for protecting their city against Lucca while the Pisan fleet was conquering the island. As a painted cassone in the Bargello shows, they were originally freestanding in Piazza del Duomo. Badly damaged in a storm in 1424, they were placed in their current location a few years later.

The cassone also shows the medieval decorative scheme, in which a group of statues by Tino di Camaino surmounted each door. The surviving statues are now in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, with a Charity in the Museo Bardini possibly sharing the same provenance.

During the Renaissance, new sculptural groups were commissioned: above the south door, Vincenzo Danti's Beheading of the Baptist (1569-70); above the east door, a Baptism of Christ begun by Andrea Sansovino in 1505, continued by Vincenzo Danti in 1568-1569, and completed by Innocenzo Spinazzi in 1792; and above the north door, a Baptist Preaching by Francesco Rustici (1506-11). Today, all three groups are in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo. Only the Baptism of Christ has been replaced by a copy, the spaces above the other two doors now being empty.

Baptistery doors

South doors by Andrea Pisano

South doors (detail) by Andrea Pisano

Andrea Pisano

As recommended by Giotto to the Arte di Calimala (Cloth Merchants Guild), the guild who had the patronage of the Baptistery, Andrea Pisano was awarded the commission to design the first set of doors in 1329. An antetype for the doors was probably the San Ranieri Gate of the Pisa Cathedral, done by Bonanno Pisano around 1180. The wax model and the gilding at the end was the work of Andrea Pisano, whereas the bronze-casting was executed by Venetian masters, for whom these monumental doors nevertheless were a difficult challenge; it took six years to complete the doors. The gate wings consist of 28 quatrefoil panels altogether, with twenty top panels depicting scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist. The eight lower panels represent the eight virtues of hope, faith, charity (the three theological virtues), humility, fortitude, temperance, justice and prudence (the four cardinal virtues). The south doors were originally installed in 1336 on the east side, facing the Duomo, and were transferred to their present location in 1452. Lorenzo Ghiberti moulded reliefs for the adjusted doorcase. There is a Latin inscription on top of the door: Andreas Ugolini Nini de Pisis me fecit A.D. MCCCXXX ("Andrea Pisano made me in 1330").

The group of bronze statues above the gate depict The Beheading of St John the Baptist. It is the masterwork of Vincenzo Danti from 1571.

Lorenzo Ghiberti

North doors

North doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo

East doors, or Gates of Paradise, by Lorenzo Ghiberti, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo

In 1401, a competition was announced by the Arte di Calimala to design the doors of the east side of the baptistery facing the cathedral, which lasted there for 25 years, before they would eventually be moved to the north side and to be replaced by Ghiberti's second commission, known as the Gates of Paradise.

These north doors would serve as a votive offering to celebrate the sparing of Florence from relatively recent scourges such as the Black Death in 1348. Many artists competed for this commission and a jury selected seven semi-finalists. These finalists include Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Jacopo della Quercia, with 21-year-old Ghiberti winning the commission. At the time of judging, only Ghiberti and Brunelleschi were finalists, and when the judges could not decide, they were assigned to work together on them. Brunelleschi's pride got in the way, and he went to Rome to study architecture leaving Ghiberti to work on the doors himself. Ghiberti's autobiography, however, claimed that he had won, "without a single dissenting voice." The original designs of The Sacrifice of Isaac by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi are on display in the museum of the Bargello.

It took Ghiberti 21 years to complete these doors. These gilded bronze doors consist of twenty-eight panels, with twenty panels depicting the life of Christ from the New Testament. The eight lower panels show the four evangelists and the Church Fathers Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint Gregory and Saint Augustine. The panels are surrounded by a framework of foliage in the door case and gilded busts of prophets and sibyls at the intersections of the panels. Originally installed on the east side, in place of Pisano's doors, they were later moved to the north side. They are described by the art historian Antonio Paolucci as "the most important event in the history of Florentine art in the first quarter of the 15th century".

The bronze statues over the northern gate depict John the Baptist preaching to a Pharisee and Sadducee. They were sculpted by Francesco Rustici and are superior to any sculpture he did before. Leonardo da Vinci is said not only to have given him technical advice, Leonardo never left him during the whole process from the modelling to the casting; the pose of John the Baptist resembles that of Leonardo's depiction of the prophet.

East doors (Gates of Paradise)

Ghiberti was now widely recognized as a celebrity and the top artist in this field. He was showered with commissions, even from the pope. In 1424 he received a second commission, this time for the east doors of the baptistery, on which he and his workshop (including Michelozzo and Benozzo Gozzoli) toiled for 27 years, excelling themselves. These had ten panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament, and were in turn installed on the east side. The panels are large rectangles and are no longer embedded in the traditional Gothic quatrefoil, as in the previous doors.

Ghiberti employed the recently discovered principles of perspective to give depth to his compositions. Each panel depicts more than one episode. In "The Story of Joseph" is portrayed the narrative scheme of Joseph Cast by His Brethren into the Well, Joseph Sold to the Merchants, The Merchants Delivering Joseph to the Pharaoh, Joseph Interpreting the Pharaoh's dream, The Pharaoh Paying him Honour, Jacob Sends His Sons to Egypt and Joseph Recognizes His Brothers and Returns Home. According to Vasari's Lives, this panel was the most difficult and also the most beautiful. The figures are distributed in very low relief in a perspective space (a technique invented by Donatello and called rilievo schiacciato, which literally means "flattened relief"). Ghiberti uses different sculptural techniques, from incised lines to almost free-standing figure sculpture, within the panels, further accentuating the sense of space.

The panels are included in a richly decorated gilt framework of foliage and fruit, many statuettes of prophets and 24 busts. The two central busts are portraits of the artist and of his father, Bartolomeo Ghiberti.

Although the overall quality of the casting is exquisite, some mistakes have been made. For example, in panel 15 of the north doors (Flagellation) the casting of the second column in the front row has been mistakenly overlaid over an arm, so that one of the flagellators looks trapped in stone, with his hand sticking out of it.

Michelangelo referred to these doors as fit to be the Gates of Paradise (Porte del Paradiso), 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".

Preservation of original art

The Gates of Paradise situated in the Baptistery are a copy of the originals, substituted in 1990 to preserve the panels after over five hundred years of exposure and damage. To protect the original panels for the future, the panels are being restored and kept in a dry environment in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum of the Duomo's art and sculpture. Some of the original panels are on view in the museum; the remaining original panels are being restored and cleaned using lasers in lieu of potentially damaging chemical baths. Three original panels made a US tour in 2007–2008, and then were reunited in a frame and hermetically sealed with the intention of making the panels appear in the context of the doors for public viewing.

Several copies of the doors are held throughout the world. One such copy is held at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Another copy, made in the 1940s, is installed in Grace Cathedral, in San Francisco; copies of the doors are also crafted for the Kazan Cathedral in Saint Petersburg, Russia; the Harris Museum in Preston, United Kingdom; and in 2017 for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

Panels

South doors (Andrea Pisano):  1. The angel announces to Zachariah.  2. Zachariah is struck mute  3. Visitation  4. Birth of the Baptist.  5. Zachariah writes the boy's name.  6. St John as boy in the desert.  7. He preaches to the Pharisees.  8. He announces Christ.  9. Baptism of his disciples. 10. Baptism of Jesus. 11. St John reprimands Herod Antipas. 12. Incarceration of St. John. 13. The disciples visit St. John. 14. The disciples visit Jesus. 15. Dance of Salome. 16. Decapitation of St. John. 17. Presentation of St John's head to Herod Antipas. 18. Salome takes the head to Herodias 19. Transport of the body of St. John. 20. Burial.  A. Hope  B. Faith  C. Charity  D. Humility  E. Fortitude  F. Temperance  G. Justice  H. Prudence

North doors (Lorenzo Ghiberti):  1. Annunciation.  2. Nativity.  3. Adoration of the magi.  4. Dispute with the doctors.  5. Baptism of Christ.  6. Temptation of Christ  7. Chasing the merchants from the Temple.  8. Jesus walking on water and saving Peter.  9. Transfiguration. 10. Resurrection of Lazarus. 11. Entry of Jesus in Jerusalem. 12. Last Supper. 13. Agony in the Garden. 14. Christ captured. 15. Flagellation. 16. Jesus before Pilate. 17. Ascent to Calvary. 18. Crucifixion. 19. Resurrection. 20. Pentecost.  A. St. John Evangelist.  B. St. Matthew  C. St. Luke  D. St. Mark  E. St. Ambrose  F. St. Jerome  G. St. Gregory  H. St. Augustine.

East doors, the Gates of Paradise (Lorenzo Ghiberti):  1. Adam and Eve  2. Cain and Abel  3. Noah  4. Abraham  5. Isaac with Esau and Jacob  6. Joseph  7. Moses  8. Joshua  9. David 10. Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

Images from the doors

Reproduction examples in situ

• 
  Gates of Paradise, Self-portrait bust of artist
• 
  Gates of Paradise, The Story of Adam and Eve (copy at the Baptistery)
• 
  Gates of Paradise, The Story of Abraham
• 
  Gates of Paradise, The Story of Joseph (copy at the Baptistery)

Interior

Interior

Tomb of Antipope John XXIII

The domed interior space, with columned niches on its imposing ground level and an apse creating directional emphasis, reprises the Pantheon. Monumental columns of the size used could not be produced in the 11th and 12th centuries, so must have been salvaged from ancient buildings, likely civic or religious structures in the Roman forum that stood at the site of the present Piazza della Repubblica. The walls are clad in dark green and white marble with inlaid geometrical patterns. A shorter gallery level with bifore is ornamented with extensive geometric and figurative designs.

The building contains the monumental tomb of Antipope John XXIII by Donatello and Michelozzo Michelozzi. A gilt statue, with the face turned to the spectator, reposes on a deathbed, supported by two lions, under a canopy of gilt drapery. He had bequeathed several relics and his great wealth to this baptistery. Such a monument with a baldachin was a first in the Renaissance.

The marble pavement is made up of many independently designed sections, some geometric, others figurative. A zodiac, similar to that on the pavement of San Miniato al Monte dated 1207, was formerly thought to have astronomical significance, but this is now considered unlikely. The pavement was probably executed over the course of the 12th century.

The present octagonal baptismal font, inscribed with the year 1370, stands near the south entrance. Its reliefs are attributed to Tuscan artists of the circle of Orcagna.

The altar is a reconstruction by Giuseppe Castellucci of the original 12th-century altar dismantled in 1731, using pieces that Antonio Francesco Gori preserved, along with drawings showing their original arrangement. The altar inspired Brunelleschi’s altar for the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo.

Mosaic ceiling

Mosaic ceiling

The Baptistery is crowned by a magnificent mosaic ceiling. It was created over the course of a century in several different phases. The oldest parts are the upper zone of the dome with the hierarchy of angels (2,3), the Last Judgment on the three western segments of the dome (1) and the mosaic above the rectangular chapel on the western side. An inscription in the mosaic above the western rectangular chapel states the date of the beginning of the work and the name of the artist. According to this inscription, work on the mosaic began in 1225 by the Franciscan friar Jacobus. The artist was previously falsely identified to be the Roman mosaicist Jacopo Torriti, who was active around 1300. In accordance with his style, Jacobus was trained in Venice and strongly influenced by the Byzantine art of the early to mid-thirteenth century. Since the inscription also names Emperor Frederick II, the inscription and the completion of the first phase of mosaics must fall within the Ghibelline phase of Florentine rule between 1238 and 1250.

The Last Judgment, created by Jacobus and his workshop, was the largest and most important spiritual image created in the Baptistery. It shows a gigantic majestic Christ and angels with the instruments of the passion at each side (formerly attributed to the painter Coppo di Marcovaldo), the rewards of the saved leaving their tomb in joy (at Christ's right hand), and the punishments of the damned (at Christ's left hand). This last part is particularly famous: evil doers are burnt by fire, roasted on spits, crushed with stones, bitten by snakes, gnawed and chewed by hideous beasts.

The other scenes on the lower zones of the five eastern sections of the dome depict different stories in horizontal tiers of mosaic: (starting at the top) stories from the Book of Genesis; stories of Joseph; stories of Mary and the Christ and finally in the lower tier, stories of Saint John the Baptist, patron saint of the church. A total of sixty pictures originated in the last decade of the thirteenth century. The key artists employed were Corso di Buono and Cimabue. It is the most important narrative cycle of Florentine art before Giotto.

In the drum under the dome many heads of prophets are depicted. Some chapels of the gallery are also decorated with mosaic. These parts were executed around 1330 by mosaicists from Siena.

Plan of the mosaic ceiling: 1. Last Judgement. 2. Lantern. 3. Choirs of Angels. 4. Stories from the Book of Genesis. 5. Stories of Joseph. 6. Stories of Mary and Christ. 7. Stories of St. John the Baptist.

Composite image of all eight sides of the ceiling counter-clockwise from Christ.

See also

• History of medieval Arabic and Western European domes

References

• Horn, Walter (1938). "Das Florentiner Baptisterium". Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz. 5: 99–151.
• Paatz, Walter (1940). "Die Hauptströmungen in der Florentiner Baukunst des frühen und hohen Mittelalters und ihr geschichtlicher Hintergrund". Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz. 6 (1/2): 33–72.
• Horn, Walter (1943). "Romanesque Churches in Florence: A Study of Their Chronology and Stylistic Development". Art Bulletin. 25: 112–131.
• Clark, Kenneth; David Finn (1980). The Florence Baptistery Doors. Viking Press.
• Paolucci, Antonio, ed. (1994). Il Battistero di San Giovanni a Firenze. The Baptistery of San Giovanni Florence (in itaeng). Modena: F.C. Panini.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
• Tigler, Guido (2006). Toscana romanica (in Italian). Milan: Jaca Book.
• Boskovits, Miklós (2007). A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The mosaics of the Baptistery of Florence. Florence: Giunti.
• Radke, Gary (2007). The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece (High Museum of Art Series). Yale University Press.
• Toker, Franklin (2009). On Holy Ground: Liturgy, Architecture and Urbanism in the Cathedral and the Streets of Medieval Florence. London; Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers; Brepols.
• Toker, Franklin (2013). Archaeological Campaigns Below the Florence Duomo and Baptistery, 1895-1980. London; Turnhout: Harvey Miller; Brepols.
• Tigler, Guido (2016). "Il Battistero e il Pantheon". In Verdon, Timothy (ed.). Firenze prima di Arnolfo: retroterra di grandezza. Mandragora. pp. 35–53.
• Verdon, Timothy (2016). "Il Battistero e San Miniato al Monte: i primi monumenti fiorentini". In Verdon, Timothy (ed.). Firenze prima di Arnolfo: retroterra di grandezza. Mandragora. pp. 7–33.
• Matteuzzi, Nicoletta (2016). Sacri simboli di luce: tarsie marmoree del periodo romanico a Firenze e in Toscana (in Italian). Empoli: Editori dell'Acero.
• Danziger, Elon (2024). "'Fiorenza figlia di Roma': New Light on the Baptistery of San Giovanni and the Chronology of Florentine Romanesque Architecture". Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz. 65 (1): 6–43.

External links

External videos
Brunelleschi & Ghiberti, The Sacrifice of Isaac

• Walks in Florence
• Over-saturated pictures of the Gates of Paradise
• The Baptistery of Florence on MuseumsinFlorence.com
• The Gates of Paradise, Smithsonian Magazine