Baptistery of St. John
Octagonal baptistery famed for gilded bronze doors and a glittering Byzantine mosaic ceiling.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Baptistery of St. John in Florence opens in 1402, when thirty-four judges deadlocked over a competition between two goldsmiths, Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti, each casting a bronze panel of Abraham and Isaac for the right to build the doors. It follows what Brunelleschi did after refusing to share the commission, and the decades Ghiberti went on to spend on these doors and the ones that followed, panels Michelangelo would later praise. Step inside and look up at the mosaic ceiling overhead while you listen.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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