Florence Baptistery

Abstract

Larry Shenfield’s passion for art and history was fuelled when he was a young man serving in Italy during the war, it was then that he sent this post card home. He had been chief translator to the Head of Allied Control during World War II, a writer on the Herald Tribune magazine, and his country's Vice Consul to Italy. Many decades later, having been a linguist, diplomat and hotelier he continued his journey of knowledge which at age 87 culminated in a PhD and the publication of his book in 2008: How Much of the Florence Baptistery is a Surviving Roman Building?: A re-evaluation of the archaeological, architectural and artistic evidence. Within it he undertakes a re-evaluation of the archaeological, architectural and artistic evidence for the building, and concludes that there is - as seems intrinsically likely - a Roman core to its structure. The memory within.