page_title: Baptistery
section_title: Famous baptisteries
hierarchical_section_title: Baptistery / Famous baptisteries
caption_attribution_description: Battistero di Albenga, Liguria, Italia
context_page_description: In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptismal font. The baptistery may be incorporated within the body of a church or cathedral, and provided with an altar as a chapel. In the early Church, the catechumens were instructed and the sacrament of baptism was administered in the baptistery.
context_section_description: Famous Italian baptisteries include:
  Lateran Baptistery, Rome, the most significant and architecturally most influential baptistery in the Christian West, founded by Pope Sixtus III
  Parma Baptistery
  Battistero di San Giovanni, Florence, Tuscan Romanesque-style structure associated with Santa Maria del Fiore, the duomo of Florence, rebuilt between 1059 and 1150; it contains Ghiberti's Doors of Paradise
  Pisa Baptistery, circular domed Baptistery of St John clad in white marble in the Piazza del Duomo, Pisa, built in stages from 1152 and combining Romanesque with Gothic.
  Lomello Baptistery of San Giovanni ad Fontes
  Famous French baptisteries include:
  Baptistery of Fréjus Cathedral
  Baptistery of Aix Cathedral in Aix-en-Provence
  Baptistery of Poitiers, reputedly the oldest Christian building in France.
  Byzantine baptisteries of the Holy Land:
  Emmaus Nicopolis
caption: The 5th century baptistery of Albenga
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