The Grand Hotel Minerva Florence
Italy has created this virtual tour to enable
guests to view our best locations. Please note
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The origins of the temple dedicated to St. John
the Baptist, later patron saint of the city, are
still uncertain. According to tradition, it was
founded in Roman times and dedicated to the god
Mars. Several sarcophagi have in fact been found
in this area, today in the Museum of the Opera
del Duomo, as was the famous statue of Mars, which
mediaeval chronacles tell us stood at the entrance
to Ponte Vecchio. However some scholars think
that the building was the Praetorium and the statue
that of a barbarian king.
Dante himself declared that his "beautiful
San Giovanni" (Inferno, canto XIX) was a
classical Roman building; excavations carried
out in this century have in fact discovered remains
of Roman constructions underneath the Baptistery
and the Cathedral, built in the north-eastern
area of the first ring of walls.
The foundations of the first Baptistery of San
Giovanni, dated from 4th-5th century circa, was
certainly built on top of these ancient buildings.
Its octagonal shape, the two lower orders, the
attic and the springer of the cupola (in other
words its basic architectural structure), date
from the early Christian construction, which was
possibly altered or completed in the early decades
of the 7th century during the Longobard rule.
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