The Story of Florence

by Edmund G. Gardner

OLD HOUSES ON THE ARNO

CHAPTER VIII

The Baptistery, the Campanile, and the Duomo

"There the traditions of faith and hope, of both the Gentile and Jewish races, met for their beautiful labour: the Baptistery of Florence is the last building raised on the earth by the descendants of the workmen taught by Dædalus: and the Tower of Giotto is the loveliest of those raised on earth under the inspiration of the men who lifted up the tabernacle in the wilderness. Of living Greek work there is none after the Florentine Baptistery; of living Christian work, none so perfect as the Tower of Giotto."–Ruskin.

"Il non mai abbastanza lodato tempio di Santa Maria del Fiore."–Vasari.

TO the west of the Piazza del Duomo stands the octagonal building of black and white marble–"l'antico vostro Batisteo" as Cacciaguida calls it to Dante–which, in one shape or another, may be said to have watched over the history of Florence from the beginning. "It is," says Ruskin, "the central building of Etrurian Christianity–of European Christianity." Here, in old pagan times, stood the Temple of Mars, with the shrine and sanctuary of the God of War. This was the Cathedral of Florence during a portion at least of the early history of the Republic, before the great Gothic building rose that now overshadows it to the east.

Villani and other early writers all suppose that this present building really was the original Temple of Mars, converted into a church for St. John the Baptist. Villani tells us that, after the founding of Florence by Julius Cæsar and other noble Romans, the citizens of this new Rome decided to erect a marvellous temple to the honour of Mars, in thanksgiving for the victory which the Romans had won over the city of Fiesole; and for this purpose the Senate sent them the best and most subtle masters that there were in Rome. Black and white marble was brought by sea and then up the Arno, with columns of various sizes; stone and other columns were taken from Fiesole, and the temple was erected in the place where the Etruscans of Fiesole had once held their market:–