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The Baptistery in Pisa (see photo page as well)
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Pisa, Europe's most ancient maritime city, lies a few miles from the sea on a small plain on which Mount Pisano dominates. The town is divided into two by a loop of the River Arno.
During the great conflict between Christianity and Islamism, represented by the Crusades, Pisa almost founded an empire by opening new routes to the sea trade of the time and founding prosperous colonies on the Mediterranean coasts. On the sea however, in the tragic battle of Meloria, the career of the town came to an end, weakened by civil wars and the rivalry of Lucca and Florence from one side and Genoa from the other.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa - this world famous structure is actually the bell tower for the adjoining Catholic cathedral. However, for me, the most interesting building at that site was located on the opposite side of the cathedral. It was a wedding cake looking marble building containing a very large baptistry. Indeed, the building is called "the baptistry" and was constructed solely for baptizing people into the Christian family. Measuring over 160 feet high (55 meters) and over 100 feet in diameter (35 meters) this beautiful marble structure is immense. Examples of early total immersion type baptisteries are plentiful. The one beside The Leaning Tower of Pisa is simply one among many. Historians say there are sixty-seven (total immersion type) baptistries still in existence in Italy today that date from the fourth to the fourteenth century.
Baptisteries, such as the one at Pisa, were built separate from the church because baptisms were usually conducted only three or four times a year (Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Epiphany). In some cases, hundreds of people were baptized by the bishop, given white robes and then invited to join the rest of the church family in the cathedral next door. However, over the years, it seems that it became easier to simply pour a little water over the candidate or even sprinkle a few drops (called affusion) upon them. A Roman Catholic, Cardinal Gibbons, stated, "For several centuries after the establishment of Christianity, baptism was usually conferred by immersion, but since the twelfth century the practice of baptizing by affusion has prevailed in the Catholic Church, as this manner is attended with less inconvenience than baptism by immersion." Faith of Our Fathers, p. 275.
The Baptistery was separate because in midlevel times you couldn’t enter a church until you were baptized.
Italian musicologists have cracked a five century-old acoustic code to reveal that Christianity's largest baptistry is a musical instrument.
A computer analysis of the resonance inside the circular, marble structure at Pisa suggests that Renaissance architects designed it to mimic the pipes of a church organ. The acoustics beneath the 75-metre (250ft) cupola are so perfect that it must be either an incredible coincidence or the work of genius; scholars say. Recordings of the walls' responses to even the faintest of noises have been processed by mathematical models to unlock the secret of how the architects used angles to manipulate sound.
Preparations are under way to perform a symphony beneath the cupola to test whether it succeeds in turning the Piazza dei Miracoli, which includes Pisa's leaning tower and cathedral, into a giant concert hall. A successful experiment will reinforce claims that the l5th century architects who added the cupola to the baptistery, built in 1152, intended to create a wonder not just of aesthetics, but acoustics.
Baptistery attendants often earn tips by singing for tourists who marvel at the echoes; but until now it was widely assumed that the acoustics were a fluke. The building was better known for a marble pulpit carved in 1260 by Nicola Pisano, the father of Giovanni.
Leonello Tarabella, a music professor at the university of Pisa, teamed up two years ago with Silvano Burgalassi, a Catholic priest who has written a book about the piazza to investigate the acoustics. "There is music that can exist only in this place and we intend to create it. The resonance, the vibrations, are incredible," Professor Tarabella said. If money can be found in time the concert will be held on June 24th when the leaning tower, held up by enormous braces for seven years, is to be declared officially straightened. On that day every year a ray of sunlight shines through a small hole in the baptistery wall and illustrates a statue of John the Baptist.
The Council of Pisa (1409-1410) was called to heal the "Great Schism of the West," a schism which lasted for forty years. Cardinals from both the Roman and Avignon factions came together, but without any papal approval (they argued that an ecumenical council had authority over popes, a disputed position). They deposed both the Roman pope (Gregory XII) and the Avignon pope (Benedict XIII) and elected Peter of Candia, who adopted the name Alexander V.
However, because neither of the other two popes approved of the Council, supporters of them refused to acknowledge the new election and the Great Schism was not yet ended - indeed, it was now worse because there were three rival popes instead of just two. This conflict was not over until the Council of Constance (1414-1418).
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