Sepulcher of Bishop Ranieri

Wall sarcophagus in white marble with geometric inlays in green serpentine, worked in an elegant and severe design based on the rectangle and the aniconic repertoire, meaning without images.

The sepulchre shows a series of mouldings and concentric strips that are elegantly worked in perfect harmony with the stone of the Baptistery walls, suggesting manufacture by the same craftsmen. The duotone of the work conveys a sense of essentiality and solemn grandeur, characteristic values of Florentine Romanesque art. In the centre is the panel with epigraph, in Leonine hexameters engraved in capital letters, citing the name of the prelate and date of his death.

Ranieri is documented as head of the Florentine church from the year 1072, and especially remembered for commissioning and coordinating the works of the diocesan synod held in the Church of Saint Reparata in 1073. He was bishop of Florence for more than 40 years, and inaugurated the Guelph vocation of the city by supporting Gregory VII against the emperor Henry IV, in the period of the so-called "investiture controversy" between pontiff and emperor. The bishop may have been granted the exception of burial inside the Baptistery due to his fondness of for the building, then under construction.