The Baptistery: source of rebirth
The Baptistery - source of rebirth
The Baptistery - source of rebirth
Audio transcription
The first scene we find here is the Baptism of Christ. It shows the moment when John the Baptist, accompanied by two angels, stands with his hand on Christ’s head. The bas-reliefs should be viewed in an anticlockwise direction.
The second panel shows the Annunciation: the Archangel Gabriel appears before Mary, depicted in accordance with Byzantine iconography, as a young woman seated on a cushion, weaving the cloth of the Temple of Jerusalem with a spindle. On the third side of the octagon, the episode of the Visitation is combined with the Nativity: on the left are Mary and Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, caressing each other’s wombs in allusion to the miracle of their motherhood. Further to the right, we have a story that unfolds on several levels. At the top is the baby Jesus in swaddling clothes, laid between the ox and the donkey. Below, Mary lies resting from the labours of childbirth, while Joseph reflects on the mystery of the birth. Continuing in an anticlockwise direction, we find the Annunciation to the Shepherds. A flock of sheep, stacked on top of each other to compensate for the lack of perspective in the depiction, looks at a flask of wine and a bag of flour hanging from a tree, symbols that refer to the Eucharist. Continuing to the right, we see the Adoration of the Magi with the three kings before Mary and Jesus. Here it is worth noticing a specific detail: their bodies face Jesus, but their feet point away, symbolising a connection to the events that follow. Seated on a raised podium, Herod summons his soldiers and orders them to go and find the infant Jesus. In the next scene we see the Massacre of the Innocents, packed with gruesome details. Completing the perimeter of the octagon, the last scene is dedicated to the Flight into Egypt. On the left, Joseph sees an angel in a dream urging him to take his family to the land of the pharaohs, while on the right, as in a narrative sequence, Mary sits on the back of a donkey, holding a water flask representing a reference to the baptismal font, while Joseph carries Jesus on his shoulders. At the base of one of the arches, in a capital, we can notice a curious detail: a cat clutching a mouse in its mouth; this is a medieval metaphor that stands for a narrow escape.
