Though the old font has gone, St. John, to the left of the high altar, still keeps watch over all the Florentine children brought to be baptised–to be made conti, known to God, and to himself in God. Opposite to him is the great type of repentance after baptism, St. Mary Magdalene, a wooden statue by Donatello. What a contrast is here with those pagan Magdalenes of the Renaissance–such as Titian and Correggio painted! Fearfully wasted and haggard, this terrible figure of asceticism–when once the first shock of repulsion is got over–is unmistakably a masterpiece of the sculptor; it is as though one of the Penitential Psalms had taken bodily shape.
On the other side of the church stands the tomb of the dethroned Pope, John XXIII., Baldassarre Cossa, one of the earliest works in the Renaissance style, reared by Michelozzo and Donatello, 1424-1427, for Cosimo dei Medici. The fallen Pontiff rests at last in peace in the city which had witnessed his submission to his successful rival, Martin V., and which had given a home to his closing days; here he lies, forgetful of councils and cardinals:–
"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."
The recumbent figure in bronze is the work of Donatello, as also the Madonna and Child that guard his last slumber. Below, are Faith, Hope, and Charity–the former by Michelozzo (to whom also the architectural part of the monument is due), the two latter by Donatello. It is said that Pope Martin V. objected to the inscription, "quondam papa," and was answered in the words of Pilate: quod scripsi, scripsi.
But the glory of the Baptistery is in its three bronze gates, the finest triumph of bronze casting. On November 6th, 1329, the consuls of the Arte di Calimala, who had charge of the works of San Giovanni, ordained that their doors should be of metal and as beautiful as possible. The first of the three, now the southern gate opposite the Bigallo (but originally the porta di mezzo opposite the Duomo), was assigned by them to Andrea Pisano on January 9th, 1330; he made the models in the same year, as the inscription on the gate itself shows; the casting was finished in 1336. Vasari's statement that Giotto furnished the designs for Andrea is now entirely discredited. These gates set before us, in twenty-eight reliefs, twenty scenes from the life of the Baptist with eight symbolical virtues below–all set round with lions' heads. Those who know the work of the earlier Pisan masters, Niccolò and Giovanni, will at once perceive how completely Andrea has freed himself from the traditions of the school of Pisa; instead of filling the whole available space with figures on different planes and telling several stories at once, Andrea composes his relief of a few figures on the same plane, and leaves the background free. There are never any unnecessary figures or mere spectators; the bare essentials of the episode are set before us as simply as possible, whether it be Zacharias writing the name of John or the dance of the daughter of Herodias, which may well be compared with Giotto's frescoes in Santa Croce. Most perfect of all are the eight figures of the Virtues in the eight lower panels, and they should be compared with Giotto's allegories at Padua. We have Hope winged and straining upwards towards a crown, Faith with cross and sacramental cup, Charity and Prudence, above; Fortitude, Temperance and Justice below; and then, to complete the eight, Dante's favourite virtue, the maiden Humility. The Temperance, with Giotto and Andrea Pisano, is not the mere opposite of Gluttony, with pitcher of water and cup (as we may see her presently in Santa Maria Novella); but it is the cardinal virtue which, St. Thomas says, includes "any virtue whatsoever that puts in practice moderation in any matter, and restrains appetite in its tendency in any direction." Andrea Pisano's Temperance sits next to his Justice, with the sword and scales; she too has a sword, even as Justice has, but she is either sheathing it or drawing it with reluctance.
The lovely and luxuriant decorative frieze that runs round this portal was executed by Ghiberti's pupils in the middle of the fifteenth century. Over the gate is the beheading of St. John the Baptist–two second-rate figures by Vincenzo Danti.
The second or northern gate is more than three-quarters of a century later, and it is the result of that famous competition which opened the Quattrocento. It was assigned to Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1403, and he had with him his stepfather Bartolo di Michele, and other assistants (including possibly Donatello). It was finished and set up gilded in April 1424, at the main entry between the two porphyry columns, opposite the Duomo, whence Andrea's gate was removed. It will be observed that each new gate was first put in this place of honour, and then translated to make room for its better. The plan of Ghiberti's is similar to that of Andrea's gate–in fact it is his style of work brought to its ultimate perfection. Twenty-eight reliefs represent scenes from the New Testament, from the Annunciation to the Descent of the Holy Spirit, while in eight lower compartments are the four Evangelists and the four great Latin Doctors. The scene of the Temptation of the Saviour is particularly striking, and the figure of the Evangelist John, the Eagle of Christ, has the utmost grandeur. Over the door are three finely modelled figures representing St. John the Baptist disputing with a Levite and a Pharisee–or, perhaps, the Baptist between two Prophets–by Giovanni Francesco Rustici (1506-1511), a pupil of Verrocchio's, who appears to have been influenced by Leonardo da Vinci.
But in the third or eastern gate, opposite the Duomo, Ghiberti was to crown the whole achievement of his life. Mr Perkins remarks: "Had he never lived to make the second gates, which to the world in general are far superior to the first, he would have been known in history as a continuator of the school of Andrea Pisano, enriched with all those added graces which belonged to his own style, and those refinements of technique which the progress made in bronze casting had rendered perfect."[40] In the meantime the laws of perspective had been understood, and their science set forth by Brunelleschi; and when Ghiberti, on the completion of his first gates, was in January 1425 invited by the consuls of the Guild (amongst whom was the great anti-Medicean politician, Niccolò da Uzzano) to model the third doors, he was full of this new knowledge. "I strove," he says in his commentaries, "to imitate nature to the uttermost." The subjects were selected for him by Leonardo Bruni–ten stories from the Old Testament which, says Leonardo in his letter to Niccolò da Uzzano and his colleagues, "should have two things: first and chiefly, they must be illustrious; and secondly, they must be significant. Illustrious, I call those which can satisfy the eye with variety of design; significant, those which have importance worthy of memory." For the rest, their main instructions to him were that he should make the whole the richest, most perfect and most beauteous work imaginable, regardless of time and cost.
The work took more than twenty-five years. The stories were all modelled in wax by 1440, when the casting of the bronze commenced; the whole was finished in 1447, gilded in 1452–the gilding has happily worn off from all the gates–and finally set up in June 1452, in the place where Ghiberti's other gate had been. Among his numerous assistants were again his stepfather Bartolo, his son Vittorio, and, among the less important, the painters Paolo Uccello and Benozzo Gozzoli.