The Baptistry was actually built before the cathedral... and you can really tell by looking at the art inside. I'll post some pictures of the interior up in a later post. It is very medieval, influenced by connections between Florentine business and the Byzantine empire. The interior is dedicated to John the Baptist- -- appropriate for a baptistry---- and features many pictures of John. Including many graphic pictures of his beheading. This city sure likes pictures of him getting his head whopped off and brought to Herod on a silver platter! Dante, author of the Divine Comedy, attended the baptistry throughout his life for mass. As a result, many of the inscriptions around the baptistry make their way in to his texts as quotations. Many of the mosaics serve as inspirations for Dante's conceptualizations of hell and the ascent in to paradise.
Following our private viewing of the baptistry, we got a good luck at Ghiberti's famous doors... a big favorite of mine! And a door that I don't hit my head on.. ah, another plus!
Tomorrow, we're venturing in to Siena. I'm looking forward to seeing the huge cathedral and the ridiculously ornate decoration... and learning some more about the beginnings of the renaissance style of art. I'm especially looking forward to tomorrow's wine tasting session. Tonight we may go downtown briefly... but I really need sleep. Hopefully, tonight's the night!
The Badgers won again last night... I watched the 2nd half, since I couldn't sleep anyway. Keep up the good work Red!
I'm going to attach some pictures of the villa here:
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