BAPTISTERY. - The word is used by Pliny the Younger with the meaning of a bath tub (Ep., II, 17, 11), and it is still employed in the same sense by Sidonius Apollinaris as a synonym of piscina (Ep., II, 2: PL 58, 473). The deacon Philip baptized the minister of Queen Candace in the water that he found along the route they traveled together (Acts 16, 13-45); St. Justin writes that Baptism is given in a place where there is water (Apol. I, 61: PG 6, 420); likewise Tertullian (De corona, 3: PL 2, 79)
who states that "nulla distinctio est, mari quis an stagno flumine an fonte, lacu an alveo" and just as John baptized in the Jordan, so St. Peter "in Tiberi tinxit" (De Baptismo, 4: PL 1, 1311). From the 4th century onward, the word b. denotes, both in the East and in the West, a special building attached to the basilica and destined for the conferral of Holy Baptism. Its synonyms were the words tinctorium, lavacrum, fons.
The essential use of water in the administration of the Sacrament inspired the architectural forms of public or private bath buildings, without any uniformity, indeed with the greatest variety; there are therefore baptisteries with a central plan, circular, pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal, in the form of a Greek cross, with vaulted and domed roofing, but all alike containing at the center of the space a pool between 70 and 75 cm deep, into which one descended by means of steps and where the water flowed in from above, from lambs, from stags, from the jaws of a lion, etc.; at the bottom of the basin was the hole for the outflow of the water.
Sometimes adjacent to the baptistery there were annexed a balneum with pools for the bathing of the catechumens before the ritual immersion, as the examples found at Fréjus and Marseille in France show, or at Gentilah and Timgad in Roman Africa, or those attested by documents for Rome and Ravenna (v. BAGNI).
The oldest known baptistery is currently that in Mesopotamia at Dura Europos (v.), earlier than 256 A.D. In some sporadic cases the baptistery was within the basilica itself, as, for example, in St. Peter's in the Vatican and in St. Chrysogonus.
For Rome, besides the monumental baptistery of the Lateran (G. B. Giovenale, Il battistero lateranense nelle recenti indagini della Pont. commissione di archeologia sacra,
(progr. E. Josi)
Rome 1929), which has come down to us in its architectural configuration still largely from the time of Sixtus III, with 8 columns in the interior, preceded by a portico, a group of smaller baptisteries such as those of S. Marcello, of S. Crisogono, and of S. Stefano on the via Latina.
In the chronicles of the bishops of Naples there is mention of a baptisterium fontis maioris and of another fontis minoris, the first S. Giovanni in Fonte near S. Restituta (G. Stuhlfauth, Das Baptisterium S. Giovanni in Fonte zu Neapel und seine Mosaiken, in Reinhold Seebergs Festschrift, II, Berlin 1930, pp. 181-212), the second near the Stephania (erected by bishop Stephen).
At Nocera dei Pagani the great rotunda with columns contains an octagonal pool; in Calabria at S. Severina, the rotunda likewise has a ring colonnade (P. Lojacona, Il b. di S. Severina, in Boll. d'Arte [1934-35], pp. 174-85).
At Milan the basilica Baptisterii dates from the time of St. Ambrose, south of the new basilica near S. Tecla, called sanctus Johannis ad fontes or fons S. Theclae; from Ennodius the baptistery of S. Stefano is known; in the Middle Ages that of S. Giovanni was used for men, the other of S. Stefano for women. A notable group of baptisteries of the type of Riva S. Vitale in Canton Ticino is the one repeated in many places of Lombardy (F. Reggioni, Dieci b. lombardi minori dal sec. V al sec. XII. I monumenti italiani. Rilievi raccolti a cura della R. Accademia d'Italia, I, Rome 1935). At Albenga and at Ventimiglia the form is octagonal (G. De Angelis d'Ossat, I b. di Albenga e di Ventimiglia, in Boll. delle R. Deputazioni di Storia patria per la Liguria, 1936).
At Ravenna two baptisteries are preserved: the one erected near the Cathedral by bishop Neon (ca. 458) and that of S. Maria in Cosmedin, built by the Arians under Theodoric. At Cividale the baptistery was from the time of the patriarch Callistus (737), at Aquileia with 5 steps in the pool. At Parenzo the octagonal baptistery with hexagonal pool is the work, like the Duomo, of bishop Euphrasius (ca. 530); at Salona too the baptistery was octagonal with a square pool.
Southern France offers a series of ancient baptisteries of great architectural importance, with piles of columns that supported the vaults or the dome, as at Aix in Provence, at Angers, at Baptiste, at Fréjus, at Le-Puy, at Marseilles, at Riez, at Saint-Rémy. Hexagonal is the pool at Lemenc
(Chambéry); square at Aire sur l'Adour; in the form of a Latin cross at Grenoble in S. Lorenzo; cruciform at Montcaret (Dordogne).
In Spain the baptistery of Calahorra was erected, as Prudentius testifies (Perystephanon, 8), on the site of the martyrdom of Sts. Emeterius and Celedonius. Gregory of Tours recalls how in a city of Portugal there was a rich baptistery in the form of a cross, richly faced with marbles (De gloria martyr., I, 24: PL 71, 725).
In Albania at Butrinto the baptistery is round; in Greece at Navarino it is octagonal with porticoes; at Jerusalem the pilgrim of Bordeaux already in the 4th century saw the balneum behind the basilica of the Anastasis where infantes lavantur (P. Geyer, Itinera Hierosolymitana, Vienna 1898, p. 23). Recently at 'Ajn el-Ma'mūdūjch near Hebron a round baptistery has been found (A. M. Steve, Le désert de Saint-Jean près d'Hebron, in Revue Biblique, 53 [1946], pp. 547-75). In Syria a series of baptisteries is now being studied by J. Lassus, Sanctuaires chrétiens de Syrie, Paris 1947, passim.
Eusebius mentions the supplementary constructions of the basilica of Tyre in Phoenicia for those who must be purified in water and in the Holy Spirit (Hist. Eccl., 4: PG 20, 808).
In Egypt in the Byzantine basilica of Abū Mīnā the baptistery is quadrilateral on the outside, and octagonal within; at Luqsor it is apsidal with a truncated-conical basin; at Medamūd it has a round basin. Very numerous are the examples of baptisteries in Roman Africa from Carthage to Uppenna, from Scefetula, from Hammām el-Lif to Tebessa, from Gemilah to Tigzirt, from Tipasa to Castiglione, from Timgad to Annonna, etc. They appear in the most varied forms, with a tegurium supported by four columns, with rich mosaic decoration.
Bibliography3 works
Enrico Josi
DECORATION OF EARLY CHRISTIAN BAPTISTERY
The rites of ancient Christian initiation had an influence not only on the creation of a type of building for worship distinct from the basilica, but also on the choice of the iconographic themes that were to decorate it.
A simple comparison between the iconography of the baptistery of Dura Europos and that of St. John in Naples is enough to show how, more than a century and a half apart from one another, the two monuments draw on an almost identical iconographic repertoire: the starry sky, the Good Shepherd, and a selection of biblical scenes, some of which allude to the great paschal event—the Resurrection—and others to the waters of Baptism. In Naples one also notes: scenes with eucharistic meaning and the Traditio legis, while the monogrammatic cross illuminates the sky, calling to mind both the illuminatio and the consignatio in the name of Christ. It is worth noting that while basilicas and martyria prefer the cross as the center of the starry sky, baptisteries instead often inscribe in it the monogram of Christ. The last figures that form part of this primitive repertoire are the Apostles and the Evangelists, as continuers of Christ's work.
The themes supplied by the further development of baptismal iconography likewise lie along the same ideological line: the deer at the spring, the acanthus, the crosses, the divine lamb, the doves, the tree of life, the four altars with the books of the Gospels, the Baptism of the Lord, the crowns and the seats awaiting in paradise—all allude to one of the fundamental concepts already present from the beginning. The negative aspect of Baptism, that is, the remission of sins, so often recalled in the inscriptions, is rarely recalled. Attention was directed much more to the positive traits of illumination, of sealing and of regeneration, which rival the concepts of peace and of refreshment. With the passage of time, as is the case at Ravenna, the most notable themes would be combined with one another into a solidly constructed whole, in which the hieratic and liturgical intentions achieve their full effect.
Bibliography
C. Baur, The paintings in the Christian Chapel, in The Excavations at Dura Europa, New Haven 1924, pp. 254-88; L. De Bruyne, La décoration des baptistères paléochrétiens, in Miscellanea L. C. Mohlberg, I, Rome 1948, pp. 189-220.
Luciano De Bruyne
BAPTISTERIES FROM THE 7TH CENTURY ON. - The architectural forms of centrally planned buildings used predominantly for baptisteries, and which from the early Christian period to the 7th century had evolved according to a process that consisted in simplification relative to the models of classical architecture and in the adoption of some of the essential values—above all the values of light—of Eastern art, precisely between the 8th and 9th centuries take on new inflections in certain Italian regions. This happens above all in northern Italy, that is, in those territories where on the one hand the ancient models were less looming and Eastern influences less direct, and on the other hand contacts were livelier with central Europe, already then in full fervor of cultural and spiritual life. Thus, while in Calabria the baptistery of S. Severina, near Catanzaro (8th century), has a ribbed dome set on eight columns and counterbalanced by the vault of the ambulatory, repeating a Byzantine architectural scheme that had no further developments among us, in northern Italy those forms were slowly being elaborated which in the 9th century in the baptistery of Agliate, and then later in those of Biella, of the Pieve di Galliano near Cantù, which is of the 11th century, truly prefigure the forms of the Romanesque age. These buildings, the last mentioned, are always centrally planned with a dome set on plastic masses clearly articulated on the exterior, while in the interiors one has the sense of a space rhythmically concluded within complex yet logical forms of stone. Indeed here in Italy in the Romanesque period, especially in the north, the numerous baptisteries take up and develop the same architectural themes previously appearing in the buildings mentioned above, with that greater freedom and self-satisfied skill in posing and solving even difficult problems of structural technique that are proper to the age.
Nevertheless some baptisteries of the Romanesque age also develop fairly simple themes, such as that of a polygonal hall, sometimes with projecting niches or apses, covered by a dome. Thus at Lenno (Como), at Novara near the Cathedral, at Ventimiglia and above all at Cremona. Here, however, the vast pointed dome gives a sense of ample breadth, and the arcades of the first order and the windows of the two upper ones suggest a theme that certainly derives from more complex models. That is, from those buildings—in our case always baptisteries—in which the structures were divided into two concentric spaces by columns or piers sometimes surmounted by galleries; then the dome was set on the walls of the central space, which at Cremona are as it were pushed back toward the perimeter wall. Baptisteries built between the 11th and 12th centuries with colonnades, matronea or small galleries are found at Arzago, at Agrate Conturbia, at Asti, where the baptistery is octagonal with a central space covered by a dome that rests on a high drum supported by heavy columns with characteristic cubic capitals.
In the baptistery of Concordia Sagittaria (Verona), which is a centrally planned building with small apses, Byzantine elements are placed alongside those more typically Lombard.
Of particular interest for the history of architectural forms are also: the baptistery next to the cathedral of Ascoli Piceno, consisting of a lower cubic element and an octagon that conceals the dome, and, the most famous of all, the baptistery of Florence. This octagonal building (with a "scarsella," or rectangular space opening in the wall facing the door of Ghiberti known as the Gates of Paradise and which in 1202 replaced an apse) is undoubtedly a very ancient building erected on Roman structures. However, apart from the remains of the Roman structures, what is visible in it today does not appear to predate the Romanesque age, nor have the excavations carried out even in recent times fully clarified the earlier appearance of the building. Here the facing of inlaid marbles, both external and internal, is admirable, as is the interior mosaic decoration of the vault of the "scarsella" and of the dome, a work of the 13th century, as well as the baptismal font of 1371 which replaced Dante's. And this while barely mentioning in passing the floor with marble inlays, the monument to the antipope John XXIII by Donatello and Michelozzo, and the three famous doors, that of Andrea da Pontedera and the other two by Ghiberti. The baptistery of Pisa, begun in 1153 by an architect Diotisalvi, has two domes set one inside the other. The external decoration, to which Giovanni Pisano also contributed, was continued during the 14th century; in the interior the font is the work of Guido Bigarelli (1245), while the pulpit was signed by the great Nicola Pisano in the year 1260. The octagonal baptistery of Volterra, begun in 1283 by a certain Giroldo da Como or da Lugano, also has a still Romanesque character (the dome is 16th-century), and the baptistery of Pistoia, begun in 1337 by Cellino di Nese after a design by Andrea Pisano, and that of Parma, which, begun in the course of the 12th century, was covered during the 13th century by a very slender pointed-arch dome with highly pronounced ribs, are also octagonal but in Gothic forms. Characteristic at Parma is the external decoration of superimposed loggias, and very beautiful in the interior is the 13th-century pictorial decoration, with representations of the Old and New Testaments. The baptistery of the cathedral of Siena, on the other hand, is in a building that forms as it were the crypt of the cathedral, serving as its base for its extension on the side of the apse. It arose in the course of the 14th century. Inside is a rectangular hall, divided into three naves by two pillars, with pointed vaults and a polygonal apse. The hexagonal font is a creation of Iacopo della Quercia, but various sculptors collaborated on it in full harmony, among them Donatello and Ghiberti. It is one of the masterpieces of Tuscan sculpture at the beginning of the 15th century.
With the Quattrocento the practice of building special buildings to house the baptismal font (v.) vanishes entirely. Now that even the memory of Baptism by immersion has been lost, the font, having become a basin surmounted by a reservoir of water, is placed in a chapel almost always near the entrance of the church or only in one of the side naves, sometimes against the wall or a pillar, at other times slightly raised in the middle of the nave itself or beneath one of the arches that separate it from the central nave. Thus, for example, in the cathedral of Orvieto, where the baptismal font consists of a basin of red marble supported by eight crouching lions, a work begun in 1390 by Luca di Giovanni Senese, continued by Pietro di Giovanni da Friburgo and by a Cristoforo Teutonico, and then completed by Iacopo di Pietro Guidi in 1403, while the octagonal pyramid, surmounted by a statuette of the Baptist, is signed and dated by Sano di Matteo.
Since the baptismal font was placed inside churches, the spaces that receive it do not differ, architecturally speaking, from the other chapels, all the more so since, many times, in the same baptistery there is an altar and the font is not placed in the middle of the space, so that the character of the space is essentially determined by that of the fonts (v.).
Famous among the baptisteries of the Baroque age is that of the basilica of St. Peter in Rome, designed by Carlo Fontana, with the font formed by a porphyry basin that was formerly the lid of the sarcophagus of Otto II in the ancient Vatican basilica. The gilded bronze covering is the work of Fontana himself (1698).
Interesting for its unified character is the chapel used as a baptistery in the basilica of St. Mary in Trastevere, the work of Filippo Raguzzini, later renovated in the time of Benedict XIV. Sometimes the baptistery is in a space contiguous with, though distinct from, the church, as in the basilica of St. Mary Major in a rectangular hall near the anti-sacristy designed by Flaminio Ponzio (1605), which was formerly the choir of the canons. The font, formed by a porphyry basin adorned with gilded metals and a statuette of the Baptist, was executed after a design by Luigi Valadier in the time of Leo XII. The paintings of the vault are by Passignano, the Assumption on the altar is the work of Pietro Bernini (1606-11).
The architectural theme of the baptistery, through the motif of the basin placed at the center of a relatively small space, offers modern architects very notable possibilities for elegant solutions.—See Plates LXVI-LXVII.
