Swaddling cloths– Langdon explains that cloths are always kept nearby baptismal fonts in case an infant being baptized happens to urinate. He refers to these towels as “swaddling cloths“, a term which describes bandage-like strips of cloth being wrapped around a baby, and is typically used to describe the baby Jesus’s makeshift clothing when he was born. Langdon and Sienna use these “swaddling cloths” to handle the mask without touching it.

APERTURA 1300-1700- A sign bearing these words is described, as well as a tourist who “apparently couldn’t decipher the building’s schedule”. “Apertura” in Italian translates to “opening”, and the numbers indicate the hours of the building: 13:00 to 17:00.

Avarice– Avarice, a synonym for greed, is one of the seven deadly sins and is punished in the fourth circle of Dante’s Inferno. The mysterious man outside the baptistry finds several thousand US dollars in his wallet and Brown concludes the chapter with “Thankfully, avarice was an international sin.” This implies that although the money is in US dollars, he can still use it to bribe Italians since greed is universal.