Review: Archaeological Campaigns below the Florence Duomo and Baptistery, 1895–1980, by Franklin Toker

Abstract

Franklin Toker Archaeological Campaigns below the Florence Duomo and Baptistery, 1895–1980 Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2013, 536 pp., 124 color and 591 b/w illus. €175, ISBN 9781905375523 This long-awaited monograph by the former field director of the investigations at Florence Cathedral arrives nearly forty years after both the major excavations beneath the cathedral and Franklin Toker's extensive and brilliant excavation report published in 1975.1 It is part of the Florence Dome Project, which envisages the appearance of four volumes related to the diachronic history and the longue duree of this important monument. Known as Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral is the result of a series of building campaigns carried out from the end of the thirteenth century to the late fifteenth century under the guidance of celebrated architects and artists such as Arnolfo di Cambio, Francesco Talenti, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Giotto. The Baptistery of San Giovanni corresponds more or less to the same chronological span, since its main building and decorative components date back to the period between the second half of the eleventh century and the beginning of the sixteenth. The history of the complex, however, is rooted in deeper history: corresponding to the western part of Santa Maria del Fiore, in Late Antiquity there stood the first Florentine ecclesia episcopalis . A first phase of the baptistery is likely to belong to this church, although our understanding of its chronology remains problematic. The earliest ecclesia underwent major structural changes in the course of …