With a height of 54.86 meters, and 34.13 meters in diameter, it is the largest baptistery in Italy. The Pisa Baptistery is an example of the stylistic transition in the course of 200 years from the
Romanesque to the
Gothic idiom. Begun in the mid-12th century by its first architect
Diotisalvi in the Romanesque style, with round arches and rather simple figural decoration, while the upper sections are in the Gothic style, with pointed
wimpergs and a rich figurative program. Like the cathedral and the campanile the Baptistery is built of bichromatic
Carrara marble, white with recurring horizontal lines in blueish-grey stone, also used for abstract floral and graphic decoration, a unique trait of some of the most important religious buildings in
Tuscany (in the neighboring
Florence and
Pistoia the dark
marmo verde from
Prato was used). The east
portal from probably around 1200 is facing the façade of the cathedral. The door is flanked by two columns with foliage decoration, a direct copy of a classical model. Engaged with the portal frame are two smaller three-quarter columns with a simpler, less deep floral ornamentation. The inner jambs between each pair of columns are decorated each with eleven figurative
reliefs executed in
Byzantine style. On the left there are depictions of the months (with September and October combined in one panel), beginning with January at the bottom. On the right it begins at the top with the
Ascension of Christ, then angels, Mary with
lifted hands, then the Apostels depicted in pairs looking up, and second to the bottom the
Harrowing of Hell; the lowermost relief shows
King David. The tripartite form is conveyed in the arch with three retreating
archivolts with the
Twenty-Four Elders in medaillons and the
Lamb of God as the keystone. The
architrave is divided in two tiers. The upper one is slightly tilted and shows Christ between
Mary and
St. John the Baptist, flanked by angels and the
four evangelists. The lower tier depicts several episodes in the life of St. John the Baptist, the natural
patron of the baptistery: his sermon, the baptism of Christ, his imprisonment on behalf of
Herod,
Salome dances before Herod, his subsequent beheading and his burial. The architraves are probably by the same artists who also did the foiled columns and the reliefs on the jambs. Only the north portal has also figurative decoration on its architrave, picturing the Annunciation to
Zechariah and
St. Elizabeth, the parents of St. John, flanked by two prophets and two angels in light armour with swords. Constructed on the same unstable sand as the tower and cathedral, the Baptistery leans 0.6 degrees toward the cathedral. Originally the shape of the Baptistery, according to the project by Diotisalvi, was different. It was perhaps similar to the church of
Holy Sepulchre in Pisa, with its
pyramidal roof. After the death of the architect, Nicola Pisano continued the work in the new Gothic language. The added outer shell in form of a
cupola enclosed the pyramidal roof. The dome is clad with
lead sheets on its southeast side (facing the cathedral) and red
terracotta tiles on its northwestern half (facing the sea), giving a half grey and half red appearance from the south. An inscription, currently undeciphered, is located to the left of the door jamb of the Baptistery.
The interior The vast interior space is overwhelming, although it lacks decoration. The octagonal font at the centre dates from 1246 and was created by Guido Bigarelli da Como. The bronze sculpture of St. John the Baptist at the centre of the font is a work by Italo Griselli. The
famous pulpit was sculpted between 1255–1260 by
Nicola Pisano, father of
Giovanni Pisano, who sculpted the pulpit in the Duomo. The scenes on the pulpit, and especially the classical form of the nude
Hercules, show Nicola Pisano's qualities as the most important precursor of
Italian Renaissance sculpture by reinstating antique representations: surveys of the
Italian Renaissance often begin with the year 1260, the year that Nicola Pisano dated this pulpit. File:Toscana Pisa7 tango7174.jpg|Baptistery interior from above File:Battistero Pisa interno.jpg|Baptistery interior File:Pisa.Baptistery.font01.jpg|Baptistery font File:Pisa - Baptisterio - Interior - 05-edit.jpg|The font for
immersion baptism from the gallery above File:Italië-Pisa Baptisterium-Doopstoel.jpg|
Marble pulpit by
Nicola Pisano, 1260 File:Interior of the Baptistry of St. John dome, Piazza dei Miracoli (-Square of Miracles-), Pisa, Tuscany, Central Italy-3.jpg|The dome seen from the inside File:Pisa Baptistry Resonance Demonstration.ogv|Acoustic resonance and reverberation demonstration ==See also==