The story of this place
The octagonal Baptistery is one of Florence's oldest buildings, its core dating to the 11th century, and where Dante and generations of Florentines were baptised. Its fame rests on three sets of bronze doors, above all the east doors created by Lorenzo Ghiberti between 1425 and 1452—ten gilded panels of Old Testament scenes rendered with revolutionary perspective and depth. Michelangelo reportedly declared them fit to be the 'Gates of Paradise,' the name that stuck. Ghiberti had won the commission for the earlier north doors in a famous 1401 competition against Brunelleschi, a contest often cited as the dawn of the Renaissance. The originals are now in a museum; faithful replicas face the Duomo.