#San #Giovanni #Corte #Baptistery #Piazza #del #Duomo #Pistoia #Tuscany #Italy

Opinion | I Asked ChatGPT to Solve an 800-Year-Old Italian Mystery. What Happened Surprised Me.

I Asked #ChatGPT to Solve an 800-Year-Old Italian #Mystery. What Happened Surprised Me.
For centuries, nobody has known who built the #Florence #Baptistery. Could #AI crack the mystery? ChatGPT and #Claude failed; #Gemini hallucinated.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/o...

CEILING MOSAIC, 461-468 CE. CHAPEL OF ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST, LATERAN BAPTISTERY This room, with a Greek cross floorplan, is very difficult to get into as it now functions as the sacristy of the Lateran Baptistery. However, it preserves its dazzling original gold mosaic ceiling, dating from the reign of pope Hilarus in the second half of the C5. The ceiling, four equal vaults meeting at centre, uses the four ribs as supports for a pergola bedecked with fruits and flowers, forming a central square containing a wreath with the haloed Lamb of God at centre. Four garlands drape downwards to make a clover pattern. On green lines following the bottom of the vaults, two per side, are kantharoi filled with fruit flanked by two birds, 4 per side, 16 in total: 4 peacocks, 4 ducks, 4 doves, 4 gallinules (?). The kaleidoscopic symmetry of the mosaic symbolises how the world is multiplied through the bounty of God. It is an extraordinary example of Christian cosmology seen through a late-antique lens.

#MosaicMonday takes us into the chapel of S. Giovanni Evangelista in the #Lateran #baptistery in #Rome, which preserves intact its ceiling #mosaic from 461-468 CE, a glorious trellis enclosing the Lamb of God within a wreath, and birds with kantharoi - #syncretic #LateAntiquity. #AncientBluesky 🏺

PALAEOCHRISTIAN BAPTISTERY, C5-C7. SAN MARCELLO AL CORSO This extraordinarily well-preserved baptistery was discovered in 1912 during works under the adjacent palazzo Salviati Mellini. It was once in a separate building attached to the late-C4 church of S. Marcello, whose orientation was opposite to today's, as the lower stretch of the Corso had become swampy, so part of the urban section of the via Salaria, now via di S. Marcello, higher up the base of the Quirinal, supplanted the Corso (via Lata) for several blocks. The baptistery shows two different brick layers, the lower from the early 400s,the upper from 200 years later but clearly on an identical plan. The simple white marble revetment, probably reused from the C5 baptistery, is incised with plain lines to create frames. The octagonal form has four semicircular niches, one in every second wall, and the water comes from a natural spring that still wells up inside the rectangular gap in the floor of the baptistery, and once filled the octagon up to at least knee height.

I went into the Six Senses hotel in palazzo Salviati Mellini and asked if they would let me see the #palaeochristian #baptistery of #SanMarcello, over which the palazzo is built, and they showed me this marvel, surely the best-preserved example from #LateAntiquity in #Rome.

Not as moving as the Giotto frescoes, but majorly impressive, and in parts completely mad (looking at you, monsters from the book of Revelations!) #Padua #frescoes #baptistery

The beautiful City of #Florence #Firenze #SantaCroce #Baptistery #SanGiovanni #PiazzaDelDuomo #Italy #Italia #Rennaisance
#Travelphotography #Travelphoto

ARIAN BAPTISTERY, C. 500 CE. RAVENNA This splendid mosaic domed ceiling dates from the reign of the Gothic king Theoderic, an Arian Christian, who managed to wrest Ravenna from the emperor Zeno and make it his capital in 487. Arian mosaics on the walls were destroyed when the Catholics triumphed and converted this into a church under Justinian in about 565. The mosaic ceiling does not offend Catholic doctrine, though Christ is shown as a beardless youth, probably prepubescent, underlying the Arian belief of the Son's subordination to the Father. Christ's navel is in the very centre of the mosaic. He is standing waist deep in the river Jordan, with John the Baptist baptising him at right, and the dove of the Holy Spirit sprinkling him with holy water from above. My favourite figure is that of the river Jordan, at left, with water pouring from a vase behind him. Around this framed central clipeus are the Apostles, lining up behind Peter and Paul who are standing on either side of an empty throne.

For #MosaicMonday we're visiting the heretical #Arian #baptistery in #Ravenna, where a glittering gold background indicates the powerful patronage of the #Ostrogothic king #Theoderic.