Battisteri o cappelle palatine? Nuovi studi sulle grandi chiese a pianta centrale dell’XI secolo in Toscana: Arezzo, Lucca, Firenze

The article opens with a summary of the state of 11th century architecture studies, very advanced in the last decade also in Tuscany. A review of Tuscan baptisteries around the year 1000 shows the exceptional nature of the proto-Romanesque ones. In particular, the monumental cases of Lucca (1023-1056), Arezzo (1014-1032) and Florence are analyzed, whose chronology and liturgy are specified by new documentary and archaeological evidences. The intertwining of very prestigious models - Pantheon, Anastasis, San Vitale in Ravenna, chapel of Aachen, San Donato in Zara, Galliano baptistery - can be explained with the episcopal commissioner adhering to the reform, in close relationship with empire and papacy. A verification of the holding of the new models is offered by their diffusion in the baptismal churches of the countryside.