TheMotherChurch 31
benefits of the westward location and even improved on them. A position to
the south of the duomo was preferred. Padua and Parma exemplify this
arrangement, although Padua’s structure is square and attached to the cor-
ner of the duomo (fig. 17 ). There the position showcases Easter rites and
processions while permitting an unobstructed view of the Mother Church
itself.
The communes inherited from antiquity the traditional form for a baptis-
tery: an eight-sided building covered by a dome. The octagon aligned with
the points of the compass; the dome brought the vault of heaven down to
earth. Symbolically, the building stood at the center of terrestrial and celes-
tial space. Very commonly, as at San Giovanni in Florence, there were three
doors, facing east, north, and south. The west wall, the direction of darkness
and the setting sun, was blind. That bay formed a niche for the baptistery
altar. In Florence, the dome mosaics depict the biblical history from creation
to the last judgment (fig. 18 ). This placed those baptized below in the center
of time. At Padua, the Menabuoi frescoes in the baptistery accomplish a
similar positioning of the participants in biblical time. At Pisa, the set of
buildings in the cathedral complex, the Piazza dei Miracoli, positions wor-
shipers at the center of time through a different strategy (fig. 19 ). The monu-
mental cemetery represents the commune’s past, the duomo its present, and
the baptistery its future. At Pisa the cultic center has itself become a cosmic
organism.
The single most important element in the baptistery was, and is, the font.
Here, by immersion, one became a Christian, ‘‘baptized into Christ’s death’’
by plunging into a watery tomb. Paleo-Christian fonts were excavated below
the floor of the baptistery, creating a kind of wading pool.^95 The minister
and those to be baptized entered the water down a series of steps. Such an
ancient font may be seen in recent excavations next to San Clemente in
Rome. The original fonts at Ravenna undoubtedly had this shape.^96 But no
example of a wading-pool font has been dated to communal Italy. It would
have been very awkward for the baptism of infants. In late antiquity, when
adult baptisms became rare and then ceased, the old form disappeared.
Something far less monumental replaced them. The early-eleventh-century
font at Ferrara shows the new style: made of the monoblock base of a Byzan-
tine column, it is not much larger than a modern font (fig. 20 ).^97 At Modena,
the early-eleventh-century font is preserved in the Museo Civico, though
now transformed into a well, probably for use in a garden (fig. 21 ).^98 It is 0. 85
meter deep and 0. 92 meter across; in shape, it may originally have been
- Cattaneo, ‘‘Battistero,’’ 181.
- The font in the Neronian baptistery today is a reconstruction and does not reflect any historical
font.
97 .Enciclopedia cattolica, 5 : 1178 , ‘‘Ferrara’’; the Ferrara font is now a holy-water vessel in the narthex. - Museo Civico d’Arte Medievale e Moderna (inv. no. 119 b); on this font, see Pistoni, ‘‘Battisteri,’’