This first section is a brief explanation of my Italy blog posts, which were inspired by my 2-week trip to Italy in May, 2025. Feel free to skip this section if you’ve read it before.
Dear Reader, If you read my Italy posts in the order in which they’ve come out, it may seem as though we hopped back and forth all over the country, but I have decided not to write these posts sequentially. I want to write about the things that interest me most, as the spirit moves me. For some topics, I may even combine cities. I hope that by doing so, you’ll find it a lot more interesting than if I just give you a tedious day by day description of our itinerary, as if I were your Aunt Mabel forcing you to sit down and watch all her Super 8 films of the family road trip to Niagara Falls from 1966.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about how I’m approaching this travelogue-within-a-blog, please let me know in the comments below!
Anyone who travels in Italy, visiting various iconic and historic sites, is bound to experience a very unique emotion, at some point, that is brought on by coming face to face with a restoration project at a location they’ve always longed to see. Tarps and scaffolding where a majestic building or breathtaking expanse of Renaissance art ought to be. Closed signs that make you want to burst into tears.
I experienced that most intensely in front of the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome, but I felt it in Florence, too, in a couple of places, not the least of which was the stunning mosaic vault of the Baptistry of St. John. There should be a word for that unique feeling, and it should be an Italian one. It’s an odd mix of emotions that’s hard to describe.
Note: A common variant of the word baptistry is baptistery. But that looks odd to me, so I couldn’t bring myself to use it outside of the links in the additional sources below. FYI.
Of course, disappointment is a big part of it, especially when the restoration is not something you anticipated. But there’s also a certain feeling of resignation, because if ever there was a nationality that was predisposed to take you down if you even tried to peek through a tarp, it’s the Italians. Don’t even think about it. But intertwined with the disappointment and the resignation is a profound feeling of gratitude, as well.
I know. You weren’t expecting me to say gratitude. But it’s true. This is a country that is justifiably proud of its heritage, and, were it not for that, there would not be so many historically preserved sights to see. According to World Population Review, Italy has more archeological sites than any other country on earth. Unfortunately, the Italian government does not invest as much of its resources into preservation as other countries with comparable economic strength. So, when you do see restoration going on in Italy, it is reason to rejoice.
Basically, I felt a bittersweet acceptance. I was disappointed in the moment, resigned to the fact that I couldn’t do anything about it, and grateful for the care being taken. The closest word for that feeling that I could find to describe that odd mix of emotions is the Japanese word Shōganai. A literal translation is “it can’t be helped”, but if I’m understanding it correctly, it’s disappointment + resignation, but culturally it often comes with a soft gratitude for what remains. So in this case, it can’t be helped, and that’s okay—especially because the reason is preservation, not neglect.
Apparently, there are occasional tours that take you up into the scaffolding so you can see the mosaics up close, but there were none during our visit, so I’ll have to console myself with YouTube videos of the vault, and high-res photography. I pulled these two images off the internet. They are the sections of the vault I would have enjoyed seeing the most.
But it turns out that even during the restoration, the visit was quite worth it, because there’s a lot more to the place than just what’s above your head. But before we get into what we did see, let’s start off with a little history. For a start, the Baptistry is the oldest building currently standing in Florence. It’s old enough to where there’s some debate as to when it was first built, and what its original purpose was.
For many centuries, people thought the Baptistry was originally a Roman temple to the god Mars. But 19th century excavations discovered a large Roman-era house beneath it, plus a burial ground from the 7th century. The most popular hypothesis today, based on what few questionable documents survive, is that Pope Nicholas II consecrated the Baptistry in 1059. However, based on the construction techniques used, some argue that it would have had to have been built sometime between 1060 and 1115. We definitely know that it existed in 1150, as that was when the lantern was placed atop the building.
So, let’s see what we can see, shall we? The building itself is eye catching. It’s octagonal, and covered with white and green marble. Its decorative arches are gorgeous, as are its horizontally striped corners and its many sculptures. It was built in the Medieval Romanesque style, and much of it was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. But the element that most people tend to focus on are the three sets of bronze doors.
The artistry employed to create these doors beggars the imagination. Each panel tells its own story. There are plenty of websites out there that describe them panel by panel, so I won’t get into that here. But in the interest of full disclosure, the doors that are currently on the building, as well as the sculptures, are not the originals. You can see those in the nearby Duomo Museum. The City of Florence decided, and rightly so, that the best way to preserve these masterpieces was to keep them out of the wind and weather, and in a secure, vandal-free environment. The copies currently on the building were made between 1990 and 2009, and they are still impressive. (The ornate door frames are the originals, by the way.)
The first set of doors was begun in 1330. The final set, the East doors shown here, are gilded, and were completed in 1447. The depth of field in each panel is remarkable. The stories are quite engaging, and make you feel as if you were present for each event.
When you enter the Baptistry (and don’t even think about bringing a backpack, or you’ll be made to come back after you’ve put it elsewhere, as Dear Husband learned the hard way), you might be braced to see nothing due to the restoration taking place, but you’ll be delightfully surprised. The marble flooring alone makes it all worthwhile.
And then you have the statuary and the various sarcophagi, which struck me as a strange addition to a place that is dedicated to baptism. But yes, they were there. There was even the elaborate tomb of the Antipope John XXIII made in part by Donatello.
That’s an interesting story. It seems there was a Western Schism in the Catholic church in 1408, in which seven cardinals withdrew their allegiance from Pope Gregory XXII, saying he broke his oath not to create new cardinals without consulting the existing cardinals in advance. (Religious politics at its finest.)
Anyway, long story short, the splinter group chose one amongst them to become Pope John XXIII, but in the end, their faction “lost”, and he was imprisoned for a laundry list of crimes, most of which, we now believe, were highly exaggerated, but nevertheless he is now considered an antipope. However, he was a good friend of the Medicis, who basically controlled Florence. They bailed him out. Upon his death he got to have a posh burial in the Baptistry. (And it turns out that the guy got his numbering wrong, so he should have been Pope John XXII, which is why we had another Pope John XXIII in the 20th century.)
Back to the Baptistry. Of course, you also see the baptismal font, which seems quite small, given the size of the building. There’s a reason for that. Originally, Florentine babies were only baptized twice a year, on Holy Saturday and the Pentecost. Can you imagine the crowd of parents carrying babies that converged on the building on those two days? Because of this, there used to be a very large, 5-basin baptismal font in the very center of the floor. (It was kind of a religious drive-thru. Five lanes, no waiting.)
But toward the end of the 13th century, it started to become more common for babies to be baptized soon after they were born. That makes perfect sense, given the 25-30% infant mortality rate back then. It would be heartbreaking for a Catholic to have their infant pass away without having been baptized.
Since the baptisms were being spread out, having a huge baptismal font wasn’t practical. (Imagine having to fill it with water each time, for just one baby.) So in 1370, the smaller baptismal font that you see today was commissioned. Residents still baptize their babies there to this day.
The Medici (remember them? The controllers of Florence?) didn’t care much about public opinion, so when they decided that the original, large font, which was no longer used, was getting in the way during their grand-ducal celebrations, they had it torn out. The people of Florence were furious about that, but what’s done is done. (On the bright side, this also made room for the current restoration scaffolding, which will be a good thing in the long run.)
Another beautiful feature of the Baptistry is the Matroneo, or women’s galleries. Unfortunately, we could not go up and explore them ourselves due to the restoration, but even getting glimpses of them from the ground floor was a delight. Each one was different. They are mostly covered in black and white frescos, consisting of animals both real and imagined, plants, geometric figures, crosses and abstract motifs.
Oddly enough, despite the name, these upper galleries weren’t reserved for women. They were for VIPs, such as dignitaries and the ruling elite. And the acoustics meant that any chanting or singing done from up there would radiate downward to the baptisms. They also allowed for multi-layered ceremonies.
Even though I could not see the mosaic vault of the Baptistry of St. John for myself, I was able to see the mosaics of the apse with my own eyes. They were breathtaking, so I can’t imagine the splendor of the things I couldn’t see. I’m glad it’s being maintained to the point where future generations will be able to enjoy it. Shōganai, indeed.
And truth be told, there was something kind of special about having the experience of beauty tempered with deprivation. I didn’t get to see the vault, but I did get to witness a civilization taking responsibility for its heritage. That’s a different kind of privilege (even if it still stings a little.) Well done, Italy.
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