The importance of water baptism in Christianity was reflected in the scale of baptistry architecture. The oldest, the Lateran Baptistry in Rome, built in 440, set a trend for octagonal baptistries; the baptismal font inside these buildings was often octagonal, though Italy's largest baptistry, at Pisa, built between 1152 and 1363, is circular, with an octagonal font. It is high, with a diameter of (a ratio of 8:5). Saint Ambrose wrote that fonts and baptistries were octagonal "because on the eighth day, by rising, Christ loosens the bondage of death and receives the dead from their graves."