Ravenna No. 1

The Battistero Neoniano, 5th cent., has a mosaic in which a haloed John the Baptist holding a staff pours water from a dish over Christ's haloed head; Christ is immersed to his waste in the water of the Jordan river; a white dove, the Holy Ghost, appears, wings spread, above; to the right, a half submerged fisherman [a personnification of the river Jordan] casts his net in the river waters; above his head the name IORDANN is inscribed. Bond (1908) suggests that one of the possible reasons for this font to be above ground is that "it may have been that the waterlogged soil made it difficult to construct a piscina under ground", although that arguement would not hold when one considers the other such above-ground fonts of the period or geographic area (e.g.: Verona) where the soaked ground was not a problem. The font at the Neoniano is large (over 8 m across and 1.3 m tall) and octagonal, with a stone appendage "the object of which may have been to protect the vestments of the bishop from being splashed" (Bond, ibid.). Bond (ibid.) mentions the "lie-down" bath/font placed inside the vast tank at this baptistery.