pulpit, in churches, elevated platform with low enclosing sides, used for preaching the sermon. In the earliest churches the episcopal throne served this purpose. The boxlike elevated ambo of early medieval times, the apparent forerunner of the pulpit, was situated in the choir and served for reading and singing. In basilical churches there was usually an ambo at both the north and south sides of the choir. At an unknown date the north-side ambo came to be used for sermons, its location being a matter of favorable acoustics rather than ritual. The modern pulpit is ordinarily in the nave against the first pier outside the chancel and at the epistle side. Pulpits early became objects of fine craftsmanship. They were generally polygonal, supported by a single pillar or a group of columns or by brackets extending from a wall. In Italy there are many handsome examples, enriched with sculpture and mosaics. The hexagonal carved marble pulpit (1259) in the baptistery at Pisa, by the sculptor Nicola Pisano, displayed the first intimations of the Renaissance. The cathedral at Prato has the celebrated round outdoor pulpit sculptured by Donatello, who also designed in his last years two magnificent rectangular pulpits for the Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. With the Reformation the pulpit became the most conspicuous and important accessory in the Protestant church. Modern pulpits are, as a rule, of simple design.

jack-in-the-pulpit: see arum.

North American plant (Arisaema triphyllum) of the arum family, noted for the unusual shape of its flower. One of the best-known perennial wildflowers of late spring in the eastern U.S. and Canada, it grows in wet woodlands and thickets from Nova Scotia to Minnesota and south to Florida and Texas. Three-part leaves on each of two long stalks overshadow the flower, which consists of a conspicuous green- and purple-striped structure called a spathe (“pulpit”) that rises on a separate stalk. The spathe curves in a hood over a club-shaped spadix (“jack”) that, at its base, bears minute flowers. In late summer the plant produces a cluster of brilliant red berries that are poisonous to humans but are eaten by many wild animals.

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