Baptistery of Parma

An octagonal tower of pink Verona marble rises beside Parma Cathedral, its tiers of open loggias stacked one above another as if the building were a truncated tower rather than a place of baptism. Nothing quite like its vertical thrust had been built before, and it stands at the hinge between Romanesque and Gothic: every element taken alone is Romanesque, yet the rhythm, proportions and upward movement already belong to the new age. Inside, the effect reverses. Sixteen sides double the eight of the exterior, and the dome, more than 23 metres across, is painted from rim to crown in concentric bands of colour.

The sculptor and architect Benedetto Antelami began the work in 1196, a date recorded in a Latin inscription on the lintel of the north portal. Construction stalled when supplies of Verona marble were cut off by the conflict with Ezzelino da Romano, lord of Verona; by 1216 the walls had reached only the second level of loggias, and work resumed in 1249. The baptistery was consecrated in 1270, still following Antelami's design. His workshop's sculpture is the most important Italian ensemble from the passage between the two styles. Around the base runs a frieze of seventy-five reliefs of real and fabulous creatures. The three portals carry the Adoration of the Magi, the Last Judgement and, on the south door through which those about to be baptised entered, the legend of Barlaam, an eastern parable showing a man in a tree tasting honey while a dragon lies in wait. Inside stand Antelami's high-relief figures of the months and seasons, generally considered his masterpiece.

The dome paintings, executed in tempera in the thirteenth century, begin with a red sky of divine love at the summit and a blue starry heaven, then descend through the apostles and evangelists, Christ enthroned between the Virgin and John the Baptist with the prophets, and twelve scenes from the Baptist's life, down to the stories of Abraham, the seasons and the elements in the arches. The niches below received votive frescoes from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, including a Saint George slaying the dragon attributed to Buffalmacco. At the centre stands a large octagonal basin of Verona marble made for baptism by immersion. Parma, ruled from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century by the Farnese dukes, is known for its music, its ham and its cheese; across the square, the cathedral dome holds Correggio's fresco of the Assumption.

Getting there

The baptistery stands on Piazza del Duomo in the centre of Parma, about 0.5 km from the main square. The city lies on the Milan–Bologna railway, and Parma Airport (PMF) is about 3.7 km away. Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport is the larger regional gateway, about 80 km to the south-east.