Italia Pisa 1 The Baptistry of St. John

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PISA
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Nel Campo dei Miracoli
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The Piazza del Duomo ("Cathedral Square") is a
wide, walled area at the heart of the city of
Pisa, Tuscany, Italy, recognized as one of the
main centers for medieval art in the world.
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Image internet
Partly paved and partly grassed, it is dominated
by four great religious edifices the Leaning
Tower (the cathedral's campanile), the Duomo, the
Baptistery and the Camposanto. It is otherwise
known as Piazza dei Miracoli ("Square of
Miracles")
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This name was created by the Italian writer and
poet Gabriele d'Annunzio
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Italy's largest baptistery (54.86m tall and 104m
in circumference), the Battistero di San Giovanni
is also slightly taller than the Leaning Tower
across the square. As it shares the same unstable
ground as the tower, the baptistery also has a
slight lean of 0.6 degrees towards the cathedral.
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Construction on the baptistery began in the
Romanesque style under Diotisalvi in 1153. Nicola
and Giovanni Pisano gave the upper part a Gothic
transformation between 1277 and 1297 and Cellino
di Nese added the Gothic dome in the 1300s. It
was finally completed in 1363.
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The lower register of the baptistery is
12th-century Romanesque (with round blind
arches), while the upper parts are predominantly
13th-century Gothic (with pointed arches).
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The exterior of the second register was decorated
with statues and designs by Giovanni Pisano most
of these have been removed to the nearby Museo
dell'Opera del Duomo and have been replaced with
copies
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The Baptistery is constructed of marble,
plentiful and often used in Italian architecture.
The immensity of the interior is overwhelming,
but it is surprisingly plain and lacks decoration
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The interior is fairly plain, dimly lit and not
especially attractive, but it includes two great
treasures the first of the great Pisano pulpits
and the large baptismal font in the center. The
baptistery's pulpit is a masterpiece carved in
1255-60 by Nicola Pisano. It was the prototype
for a series of four monumental pulpits he
created with his son Giovanni (the last,
Giovanni's greatest work, is in Pisa's Duomo the
other two are in Pistoia and Siena)
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The pulpit's high reliefs, which depict scenes
from the life of Christ, are strongly influenced
by classical art - including the Roman sarcophagi
and Greek vase now in the Camposanto. Many of the
figures look like pagan gods Christianized as
Madonnas and saints.
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The central baptismal font was carved and inlaid
in 1246 by the Gothic sculptor Guido Bigarelli da
Como (active 1238-57). In the center of the font
is a 20th-century statue of St. John the Baptist,
to whom the baptistery is dedicated.
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The baptistery is renowned for its perfect
acoustics - choir concerts held inside can be
heard from miles away
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You can test the acoustics by arriving when it is
least crowded (such as first thing in the
morning), getting as close to the center as
possible and sounding a loud note - it will echo
around the room as it fades
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2011
Text Internet Pictures Daniela Iacob All 
copyrights  belong to their  respective owners
Presentation Sanda Foisoreanu
Sound Felix Mendelssohn - Sacred
Choral Works
Cambridge Trinity College Choir

Presenter Notes
17 - Magnificat 'My soul doth magnify the Lord',
Op 69 no 3

01 - Sechs Spruche fur das Kirchenjahr Op 79 -
Weihnachten. Allegro moderato