Florence Batpistery #2
The Baptistery of Florence, located right beside il Duomo or Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is where all Florentines were baptised until 1935 and Dante was no exception. He was baptised on March 26, 1266. It seems that Dante remembered this place with a certain level of fondness as he referred to it as ‘mio bel San Giovanni’ in Inferno XIX, while comparing the pits punishing the popes to the baptistery fonts and bringing out the story of him saving a man by breaking one of which that probably contains the purpose of defending his following condemnation of the pope by showing a righteous profane act. He mentioned the baptistery again in Paradiso XXV when he expressed his wish of returning to Florence and being crowned with laurel in it: ‘I shall return as poet and put on, at my baptismal font, the laurel crown; for there I first found entry to that faith which makes souls welcome unto God, and then, for that faith, Peter garlanded my brow’, which also revealed the significance of the baptistery to Dante as baptising allowed him to enter the path to God. The act of baptism itself also holds importance as it symbolised crucifixion and resurrection and being baptised is almost being symbolically pulled out of hell and sins. Dante the pilgrim received his second baptism in the Garden of Eden where Matilda emerged him into river Lethe and Eunoe to forget past sins and recall good memories, before his ascent to Paradiso.
