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Each door contains 10 scenes in the upper section from the life of St John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence to whom the Baptistery is dedicated. The detail shows the two scenes depicting baptism on the left door.
When Andrea Pisano started work on the bronze doors, he was already a proficient metalworker and the possessor of a personal style. One of its determinant was Northern Gothic art, from which, among much else, the quadrilobe medallions employed to frame the scenes set in the door derive. The principal source of this decorative aspect of Andrea's style is likely to have been French Gothic metalwork. Of the high finish of the figures and in the use of the bronze ground to set off gilded surfaces of the relief, Andrea appears as a metalworker rather than as a sculptor. The other determinant was Giotto, whose frescoes in Santa Croce are fundamental for Andrea's figurative style.
The detail shows the Baptism scenes (panels Nos. 9 and 10). At the four corners of each scene are lions, heads (the Marzocco, symbol of the Florentines) with bands of alternating rosettes and studs between.
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