Top of the World
Pride of place in the interior of the Baptistry goes to the Baptismal Font, a magnificent creation in marble, bronze and enamel to which the greatest sculptors of the age, including Giovanni di Turino, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia, all contributed between 1417 and 1431. The font consists in a hexagonal basin adorned with six gilded bronze panels depicting scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist alternating with statues of the virtues, two of which – Faith and Hope – are by Donatello. The most representative scenes include Lorenzo Ghiberti's Baptism of Christ cast in 1427, an elegant and sophisticated scene with a painterly quality and a sense of perspective achieved thanks to his adoption of the "stiacciato" (very flat, low) relief technique. The cycle is completed by a celebrated relief cast by Donatello in 1427 depicting the Feast of Herod, the most moving scene of all thanks both to the dramatic nature of the subject matter itself and to the panel's superb formal qualities.
