Frescoes in the Baptistery, Padua (c. 1378)

The baptistery, located at the northeast corner of Padua Cathedral, was built during the second half of the thirteenth century alongside the Romanesque predecessor of the present cathedral. It is a building with principal axes of the same length on a square plan, having cupola on a circular drum and an adjoining chancel on the east. The decoration of the interior was initiated by Fina di Pataro Buzzacarini, the wife of Francesco I da Carrara, known as Francesco il Vecchio, the lord of Padua from 1350 to 1388. She died in 1378 and was buried in the baptistery. Giusto de' Menabuoi, a native of Florence but active in northern Italy, was entrusted with the decoration which probably began after the death of the donor.

The pictorial program of the frescoes, which cover the entire interior, is subdivided into several sections: Paradise in the upper segment of the vault, scenes from the Genesis in the window zone below that, the evangelists in the spandrels, the story of John the Baptist and the life of Christ on the four walls of the main space, and finally the Miracle of Pentecost and a number of motifs from the Apocalypse on the east side of the adjacent chancel.

The dominant accent is the fresco in the dome of the cupola, its theme - Paradise depicted as a heavenly retinue assembled around Christ - had been a recurring subject of fourteenth-century frescoes. It probably reflected the effect that Dante's Divine Comedy had on its contemporaries. Giusto's narrative tone is predominantly solemn and ceremonial. His strength clearly did not extend to the depiction of dramatic events or variation in the action and expression of figures.