Battistero di San Giovanni Battista

Beside Reggio Emilia's cathedral, the Baptistery of San Giovanni Battista preserves an independent eleventh-century building with a Renaissance façade. Its marble font and carved measurement marks link religious ritual with the commercial life of the medieval city.

Why it matters

The baptistery is an uncommon independent structure in Emilia and forms a symbolic counterpart to the cathedral. Its origins are dated to around 1040–49. The building has served the city's religious community for nearly a millennium, while surviving features record the standards once used in local trade.

What to notice

Bishop Bonfrancesco Arlotti's late-fifteenth-century remodelling gave the exterior a Renaissance appearance, including a lunette showing the Baptism of Christ. Inside, Francesco Caprioli's fresco of the same subject dates to 1497–98. The baptismal font, carved from red Verona marble in 1494, is the oldest object in the room. Beside the entrance, two carved marks indicate the braccio reggiano and the pertica, historic measures for cloth and land.

Context and history

The baptistery was built beside the cathedral and Bishop's Palace in the eleventh century. At the end of the fifteenth century, Bishop Arlotti renovated the building and integrated it with the adjacent palace. The font and fresco belong to this period of renewal. Restoration in the 1980s revealed substantial portions of the medieval structure, which had remained hidden until then. The metric system replaced the braccio and pertica in 1803, though the biolca reggiana survives in local usage.