This paper1 re-examines the relationship between Dante’s Commedia and the Baptistery of San Giovanni from an art historical perspective. Drawing on –– and then departing from –– earlier work by Dante scholars who described figurative echoes between the Commedia and the Baptistery’s mosaic program, this article reconceptualizes the relationship between the two as not only figurative, but also liturgical. Using the texts of two extant medieval Florentine libri ordinales to reconstruct the liturgy of Holy Saturday, I document the ways in which the decorative mosaic imagery of the Baptistery is reflected in and reinforced by the multisensory performance of the baptismal rite. I argue further that Dante ekphrastically reimagines this rite in cantos 1–2 and 29–33 of Purgatorio. By exploring Dante’s liturgical imagination vis-à-vis the multivalent space of the Baptistery, this paper articulates and illuminates the profound interconnections that can exist between medieval art, architecture, liturgy, and poetry.
Alighieri D (2019) La Commedia. Edited by G Petrocchi, compiled by T Barolini and translated by A Mandelbaum. New York: Columbia University. https://digitaldante.columbia.edu (accessed November 2020).
2.
Alighieri D (1960) Epistole. Edited by E Pistelli and translated by P Toynbee. Testo critico della Societa' Dantesca Italiana. Florence: Societa' Dantesca Italiana. Available at: https://dante.princeton.edu/pdp/epistole.html) (accessed 12 September 2020).
Durandus G (1995–2000) Guillelmi Duranti Rationale divinorum officiorum. In: Davril A and Thibodeau AM (eds) Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis. Turnhout: Brepols.
6.
Michael the Deacon (1960) Ekphrasis of Hagia Sophia. Translated by C Mango and J Parker. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 14: 233–245.
7.
Piattoli R (1950) (ed) Codice Diplomatico Dantesco. Firenze: L. Gonnelli.
Villani G (1896) In: R Selfe and PH Wicksteed (eds) Selections From The First Nine Books of the Croniche Florentine of Giovanni Villani. Westminster: Constable. Available online: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33022/33022-h/33022-h.htm.
12.
ArdissinoE (1990) I canti liturgici nel Purgatorio dantesco. Dante Studies, With the Annual Report of the Dante Society108: 39–65.
13.
AtkinsonN (2016) The Noisy Renaissance: Sound, Architecture, and Florentine Urban Life, University Park: The Pennsylvania University Press.
14.
BarkanL (2012) Mute Poetry, Speaking Pictures, NJ: Princeton University Press.
15.
BaroliniT (1992) The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante, NJ: Princeton University Press.
16.
Ben-Aryeh DN (2013) Nel mio bel San Giovanni, fatti per loco de' battezzatori: Baptismal Fonts in Tuscany. In: Sonne de Torrens H and Torrens MA (eds) The Visual Culture of Baptism in the Middle Ages: Essays on Medieval Fonts, Settings and Beliefs. London: Ashgate, pp. 11–30.
17.
BetancourtR (2016) The Icon’s Gold: A medium of light, air, and space. West 86th23: 252–280.
18.
Bloch A (2011) Baptism, movement, and imagery at the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. In: Zchomelidse N and Freni G (eds) Meaning in Motion: The Semantics of Movement in Medieval. Princeton, NJ: Department of Art, pp. 131–160.
19.
Bloch A (2013) The two fonts of the Florence Baptistery and the evolution of the baptismal rite in Florence, ca. 1200–1500. In: Sonne de Torrens H and Torrens MA (eds) The Visual Culture of Baptism in the Middle Ages: Essays on Medieval Fonts, Settings and Beliefs. London: Ashgate, pp. 77–103.
20.
BoydeP (1993) Perception and Passion in Dante’s Comedy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
21.
BoskovitsM (2007) The Mosaics of the Baptistery of Florence, Florence: Giunti.
Camille M (2000) Before the gaze: The internal senses and late medieval practices of seeing. In: Nelson R (ed) Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 97–123.
24.
CarruthersM (1990) The Book of Memory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
25.
CiabattoniF (2010) Dante's Journey to Polyphony, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
26.
CorbettGWebbH (2015–17) Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy, Vols 1–3, Cambridge: Cambridge Open Book Publishers.
27.
DayWRJr (2002) The population of Florence before the Black Death: Survey and synthesis. Journal of Medieval History28: 93–129.
28.
DameronGW (2005) Florence and its Church in the Age of Dante, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
29.
de Ventura P (2013) Notes on Nature and Art in the Earthly Paradise In: O’Connell D and Petrie P (eds) Nature and Art in Dante: Literary and Theological Essays. Dublin: Four Courts Press, pp. 77–94.
30.
DerbesA (2016) Washed in the blood of the lamb: Apocalyptic visions in the baptistery of Padua. Speculum91: 945–997.
31.
ElsnerJ (2010) Art History as Ekphrasis. Art History33: 10–27.
32.
Fassler M (1991) Representations of Time in 'Ordo Representacionis Ade.' In: Poiron D and Regalado N (eds) Contexts and Values in Medieval Art and Literature. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 97–113.
33.
Flanigan C (2001) The moving subject: Medieval liturgical processions in semiotic and cultural perspective. In: Ashley K and Husken W (eds) Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 35–52.
34.
Frere WH (1935) Studies in Early Roman Liturgy. Vol III. London: Oxford University Press.
35.
GaldyAM (2016) The Art, History and Architecture of Florentine Churches, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
36.
GarzelliA (1969) Sculture toscane nel Dugento e nel Trecento, Florence: Marchi & Bertolli.
37.
GinsbergW (1991) Dante, Ovid, and the Transformation of Metamorphosis. Traditio46: 205–233.
38.
GiustiA (2000) The Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence, Florence: Mandagora.
39.
HeffernanJ (2004) Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
40.
Herzman R (1992) Dante and the Apocalypse. In: Emmerson RK and McGinn B (eds) The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 398–413.
41.
HollanderR (1994) Dante’s Epistle to Cangrande, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
42.
Holsinger B (2015) Liturgy. Literature, Literary Studies - Early and Medieval, Literary Studies - 1500 to 1700. Oxford Handbooks Online: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199287666.013.0019 (accessed 6 November 2020).
43.
Hueck I (1994) Il programma de mosaici. In: Paolucci A (ed) Il Battistero di San Giovanni a Firenze. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini, Vol 1, pp. 229–264.
44.
IsarN (2011) Chorós: The Dance of Adam: The Making of Byzantine Chorography, the Anthropology of the Choir of Dance in Byzantium, Leiden: Alexandros Press.
45.
JamesL (2004) Senses and Sensibility in Byzantium. Art History27: 522–537.
46.
JamesL (2017) Mosaics in the Medieval World: From Late Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
47.
KellyH (1989) Tragedy and Comedy from Dante to Pseudo-Dante, Berkeley: University of California Press.
48.
Kelly TF (2010) Candle, text, ceremony: The Exultet at Rome. In: Kelly TF (ed) The Practice of Medieval Music: Studies in Chant and Performance. Farnham: Ashgate, pt. II, pp. 7–68.
49.
Kleinhenz C (2003) On Dante and the visual arts. In: Barolini T and Wayne Storey H (eds) Dante for the New Millennium. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 274–92.
50.
Kleinhenz C (2005) Movement and meaning in the Divine Comedy: Toward an understanding of Dante's processional poetics. Bernardo Lecture no. 14. Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
51.
Lakey C (2018) ‘To see clearly’: The place of relief in medieval visual culture. In: Kessler HL and Newhauser RG (eds) Optics, Ethics, and Art in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Looking into Peter of Limoges's Moral Treatise on the Eye. Ontario: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
52.
Ledda G (2013) (ed) Preghiera e liturgia nella Commedia. Ravenna: Centro Dantesco dei Frati Minori Conventuali.
53.
Le GoffJ (1984) The Birth of Purgatory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
54.
Marina A (2015) Architecture and urban space. In: Barański ZG and Pertile L (eds) Dante in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 427–447.
55.
Martinez RL (2004) The poetics of advent liturgies: Dante’s ‘Vita Nova’ and ‘Purgatorio.’ In: Picone M, Cachey TJ, and Mesirca M (eds) Le culture di Dante: studi in onore di Robert Hollander. Florence: Franco Cesati, pp. 271–304.
56.
MartinezRL (2009) “L'amoroso canto”: Liturgy and vernacular lyric in Dante's "Purgatorio,". Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society127: 93–127.
57.
NassarPE (1993) The iconography of hell: From the baptistery mosaic to the Michelangelo fresco. Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society111: 53–105.
58.
Neri Lusanna E (1994) L’antico arredo presbiteriale e il fonte del Battistero: Vestigia e ipotesi. In: Paolucci A (ed) Il Battistero di San Giovanni a Firenze. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini, Vol 1, pp. 189–204.
59.
NicholsSCalhounA (2008) Rethinking the Medieval Senses, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
60.
NordenfalkC (1985) The five senses in Medieval and Renaissance art. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes48: 1–22.
61.
PalazzoE (2014) L’invention chrétienne des cinq sens: L’art, la liturgie et les cinq sens au Moyen Age, Paris: Cerf.
62.
Paolucci A (1994) (ed) Il Battistero Di San Giovanni a Firenze/The Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence, Vols 1–2. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini.
63.
PentchevaB (2010) The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual and the Senses in Byzantium, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
64.
PentchevaB (2020) Performative images and cosmic sound in the Exultet liturgy of Southern Italy. Speculum95: 396–466.
65.
Phillips-RobinsH (2016) ‘Cantavan tutti insieme ad una voce’: Singing and community in the Commedia. Italian Studies71: 4–20.
66.
Phillips-RobinsH (2018) Singing for Dante in ‘Purgatorio’ 30–31. Bibliotheca Dantesca1: 127–145.
67.
QuivigerF (2010) The Sensory World of Italian Renaissance Art, London: Reaktion.
68.
Singleton C (1960) In Exitu Israel de Aegypto. Annual Report of the Dante Society, with Accompanying Papers 78: 1–24.
69.
TacconiM (2006) Cathedral and Civic Ritual in Late Medieval and Renaissance Florence: The Service Books of Santa Maria del Fiore, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
70.
Tavoni M (1994) Sul fonte battesimale di Dante. In: Paolucci A (ed) Il Battistero di San Giovanni a Firenze. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini, Vol 1, pp. 205–228.
71.
TavoniM (2015) Qualche idea su Dante, Bologna: il Mulino.
72.
TokerF (2009) On Holy Ground: Liturgy, Architecture, and Urbanism in the Cathedral and the Streets of Medieval Florence, London: Harvey Miller.
73.
ThompsonA (2006) Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125–1325, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
74.
TrachtenbergM (1997) Dominion of the Eye, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
75.
TreherneM (2006) Ekphrasis and Eucharist: The poetics of seeing God's art in Purgatorio X. The Italianist26: 177–196.
76.
Treherne M (2013a) La commedia di Dante e l’immaginario liturgico. In: Ledda G (ed) Preghiera e liturgia nella Commedia. Ravenna: Centro Dantesco dei Frati Minori Conventuali, pp. 11–30.
77.
Treherne M (2013b) Art and nature put to scorn: On the sacramental in Purgatorio.” In: O’Connell D and Petrie J (eds) Nature and Art in Dante. Dublin: Four Courts Press, pp. 187–210.
78.
TuckerDJ (1960) In Exitu Israel de Aegypto: The Divine Comedy in the light of the Easter Liturgy. American Benedictine Review11: 43–61.
79.
WebbR (2009) Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice, London: Routledge.
80.
WilkinsE (1927) Dante and the mosaics of his Bel San Giovanni. Speculum2: 1–10.
81.
ZchomelidseN (2014) Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
