Byzantine and Romanesque architecture . es and compartments occurs in thefa9ade of the Badia of Fiesole, and in the BaptisteryAT Florence, Dantes mio bel San Giovanni (Fig. 56). The history of this latter buildinsc has been a matter of Baptistery, ... Florence controversy. It used to be said that behind its clothingof marble were the walls of a temple of Mars. Anothertheory is that it was built by Queen Theodelinda. Cattaneoconsiders the interior and most of the exterior architectureto date from the second half of the i ith century, and thatthe bare walls cannot be referred to the 6th century
Byzantine and Romanesque architecture . es and compartments occurs in thefa9ade of the Badia of Fiesole, and in the BaptisteryAT Florence, Dantes mio bel San Giovanni (Fig. 56). The history of this latter buildinsc has been a matter of Baptistery, ... Florence controversy. It used to be said that behind its clothingof marble were the walls of a temple of Mars. Anothertheory is that it was built by Queen Theodelinda. Cattaneoconsiders the interior and most of the exterior architectureto date from the second half of the i ith century, and thatthe bare walls cannot be referred to the 6th century andQueen Theodelinda, as the construction of a domedbuilding with so great a diameter was beyond the humbleskill of that date. Fergusson again considers that thewhole design of the building has been altered, and that theancient columns of granite now placed against the wallonce stood out on the floor and carried an architraveand an upper range of columns like those in Constantines 248 FLORENCE [CH. XVI THEBAPTISTEKFLOIENCE rDAciMCOURT). SCALE (Of FEET Fig. 56. CH. xvi] FLORENCE 249 baptistery at the Lateran, with a wooden roof, or else a Thesmall dome like the church of S. Costanza at Rome, ^^p^^^^^This would have got over Cattaneos difficulty, but thebuilding shows no sign of so radical a change as its presentcondition would have occasioned. The exterior seems tohave been decorated by Arnolfo del Cambio in the 13thcentury, who cut out the plain stonework that was mixedwith the marble facing, and substituted dark marble fromPrato^ in bands like those at S. Miniato. This baptistery (Fig. 56), once the Cathedral ofFlorence, is octagonal, with classic shafts and capitalssupporting an upper storey of columns with three two-light openings between them in each face, and a gallerybehind them. The details are for the date singularly Classicalclassical. Five of the capitals are tolerably correctCorinthian : the leaves are rather coarsely raffled, andthe piping stops square at the level
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjacksont, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1913
