TheMotherChurch 29
baptistery with the city saved the massive freestanding communal structures
from being pulled down after the Council of Trent, when baptismal churches
proliferated and quiet private baptism became the Catholic norm.
Some Italian cities inherited ancient baptisteries and continued to use
them.^86 Medieval Ravenna used the Neronian baptistery, which is found in
the baptistery’s usual ancient location, off the cathedral’s north transept (fig.
13 ); the old Arian baptistery there had long since been converted into a
church. Crema used its ancient baptistery into the fourteenth century; that
at Pavia was in use until its demolition in 1488. Brescia used its ancient
baptistery until the sixteenth century. Some cities, like Treviso, converted
churches that happened to lie beyond the north transept into baptisteries
(fig. 14 ). But most communal baptisteries were themselves products of a
building boom during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The boom began
with the construction of a new baptistery at Verona under Bishop Bernardo
( 1123 – 35 ). Pisa dedicated its famous baptistery in 1152. With the collapse of
imperial control in the north, constructions started in earnest: Cremona in
1167 , Parma in 1196 , and, during the same period, the great constructions
at Florence and Padua.^87 The thirteenth century saw cities improving and
redecorating both ancient and twelfth-century baptisteries. Some cities felt
the need of something more impressive than their early communal construc-
tions and initiated projects to replace them. Bologna, in 1250 , funded a proj-
ect to take down the old structure in front of the duomo and build a more
impressive one.^88 Nothing came of the project, but they did redo the old
building under Bishop Ottaviano degli Ubaldini in 1272.^89 I have already
mentioned work at Vicenza. Como rebuilt its Paleo-Christian baptistery in
the 1270 s. Siena, at the end of the century, replaced its old freestanding
baptistery with a modern one under the apse of the duomo.
As princes replaced the republics in the fourteenth-century, the boom
ended, although Modena drew up plans (never executed) to replace their old
baptistery in 1326.^90 Bergamo completed a new building in 1340 , perhaps
the last monumental baptistery of the Italian Middle Ages. Under princely
domination, the baptistery lost civic importance. Milan, under the Visconti,
abandoned their ancient baptisteries of San Giovanni and Santo Stefano in
- By contrast, in the communal period, there is but one example of a
decision to abandon a monumental baptistery, at Faenza in 1172. There they
turned the building into a church and moved the font to a chapel in the
- On baptistery construction, see Cattaneo, ‘‘Battistero,’’ 173 – 90.
- Annales Cremonenses ( 1167 ), ed. Georg Waitz,MGH.SS 31 : 186.
- Bologna Stat.i( 1250 ), 1 : 440.
- Manzini,Cenni storici, 26.
- Modena Stat. ( 1327 ), 6. 1 ,p. 862 ; on this project, see Giuseppe Pistoni, ‘‘I battisteri della diocesi
di Modena,’’Atti del convegno di Parma ( 1976 ), 99. Nothing seems to have come of it: Modena Stat. ( 1327 ), - 1 ,p. 682.