Architecture,  History,  Italy

Exploring the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (il Duomo)

November 22, 2025 / 49 Comments

And when I thought of Florence, it was like a miracle city embalmed and like a corolla, because it was called the city of lilies and its cathedral, St. Mary of the Flowers

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

Cathedrals often dominate their cities but I’m not sure I have ever seen one do so to the extent that Florence’s Duomo does. Although relatively hemmed in by other buildings, it towers over them.

Any viewpoint over the city, whether from one of its towers or from the surrounding hills, will make this obvious. It is hard almost to look at any other detail in the Florentine cityscape, the cathedral always takes centre stage.

View from the Piazzale Michelangelo

A brief history of the building

This is Florence’s third cathedral and has a long history. Work started in 1296 and was to last 140 years. It was built on the site of the city’s second cathedral, dedicated to Santa Reparata. The first architect was Arnolfo di Cambio who designed three naves, the central one covering the footprint of that previous building, and an octagonal dome. There were three apses, intended to suggest the form of a flower, as an homage to this ‘city of flowers’.

But di Cambio died in 1302 and construction slowed. It was revived again in the 1330s. Giotto designed the campanile and began work on building it, but he too died in 1337. Andrea Pisano continued the work but was halted by the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348.

In 1349, activity resumed under a series of architects, starting with Francesco Talenti. He finished the campanile and enlarged the overall structure with a more substantial apse and side chapels. By 1375, the old church of Santa Reparata was pulled down. The nave was finished by 1380, and only the dome remained incomplete.

Il Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

In 1418 Filippo Brunelleschi won a competition to design and build that dome. Work began in 1420, and was finally finished in 1436. The cathedral was consecrated by Pope Eugene IV on 25 March that year. The dome alone is an architectural and engineering marvel. Even today it remains the largest masonry dome in the world. It was built using techniques that Brunelleschi had to invent as he went along, as there were to be no Gothic-style flying buttresses. These were rejected as ugly by the new Renaissance architects.

But the story of the building doesn’t end there as the current façade on the west front wasn’t installed until 1887, to a design by Emilio De Fabris in the same polychrome marble as the rest.

The above is a precis of a much longer article on Wikipedia about the history of the cathedral

Visiting the cathedral

Our first day in Florence was wet … very wet! So it made sense to focus on indoor attractions. After a pleasant couple of hours in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, which was surprisingly quiet (images from there in a future post), we walked to the cathedral. Unsurprisingly that was much less quiet; many tourists obviously thought as we did about indoor activities.

We joined what we thought was a queue for cathedral entry alone. But when we finally reached the front, we discovered this was the queue for pre-paid crypt visits and other attractions. Rather than start queuing all over again, in the rain, we decided to buy tickets there and then on my phone, and to include a couple of other sights too. We then learned that Chris wouldn’t be able to take his really very small backpack into the cathedral; it needed to be deposited in an office around the back. Luckily the ticket collector allowed him to hold our place at the top of the queue while I dropped off the bag. And eventually we were inside.

I could happily have spent some time studying and photographing the details on the door. But we weren’t encouraged to linger here and were shooed into the interior.

We started in the crypt where you can see the archaeological remains of the first cathedral on this site, Santa Reparata, including well-preserved mosaic flooring and some frescoes.

Frescoes and mosaic floor in the crypt of Santa Reparata

We then explored the cathedral itself, which is quite stark apart from a magnificent dome.

The dome and the Croce del Giubileo

As we reached that a choir, which appeared to be practicing, started singing. It was rather magical and I shot a bit of video to capture the sound. My camera is pointed upwards throughout as a crowd had gathered here and I couldn’t actually see much of the choir.

Choir in the cathedral

Il Campanile

The cathedral’s campanile or bell tower, built to the design of Giotto in the early 14th century, is 84.7 metres tall. Its lower level is decorated with a series of hexagonal panels depicting the history of mankind. Those we see today are replicas; the originals are in the cathedral museum. Above them are lozenges, again replicas, with marble figures on a background of blue majolica. Higher still we come to statues of saints, prophets and other figures. The upper levels are less adorned but still highly decorated. They are very cleverly designed; each is a little larger than the one below, in proportions that exactly counter the effect of perspective, so that from below they all appear to be the same size.

Il Campanile: above the door is a sculpture, Christ Blessing, by Andrea Pisano

You can climb the tower for an extra fee. But with the prospect of 414 steps and poor visibility from the top, we decided to skip this!

Battistero di San Giovanni

The Baptistry of St John stands opposite the west front of the cathedral. Its structure was inspired by the Roman Pantheon and its history, according to Wikipedia, is somewhat vague.

A rainy view of the baptistry from the nearby Move On bar

As with the decorations on the Campanile the bronze Baptistry doors, one of my favourite parts of the building, are copies of originals now displayed in the museum. The south doors were designed by Andrea Pisano and the north and east doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The south ones depict twenty scenes from the life of John the Baptist, the north scenes from the life of Christ and the east stories from the Old Testament.

It was easier to take photos of these than the cathedral ones as we weren’t hurried inside. The first three photos below are of the north door through which we entered, the fourth is of the south exit door.

North door details left and centre, south door on the right

The baptistry is unfortunately for us currently undergoing major restoration so the mosaics on the interior of the dome were all covered up. I could only get photos of those at a lower level on the walls and of the scarsella, the small rectangular apse where the altar is situated. But the ceiling of the latter was enough to wow me!

Scarsella and wall decorations

There is an excellent image of the dome, created from multiple photos stitched together, included in the Wikipedia article about the Baptistry. Here is a direct link to the image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Florence_baptistery_ceiling_mosaic_14493px.jpg

Gallery of exterior photos

As I mentioned, we visited the cathedral on a very wet day. So we returned the following day when it had stopped raining to get some better photos of the exterior.

The mosaics above each door of the west front façade were designed by Nicolò Barabino.

The left-hand portal of the west front façade; the mosaic is of Charity among the founders of Florentine philanthropic institutions

The central portal of the west front façade; the mosaic depicts Christ in Majesty with the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and other saints

Details from the west front façade; the Madonna with Child is by Tito Sarrocchi

The right-hand portal of the west front façade; the mosaic shows craftsmen, merchants and philosophers of Florence paying homage to the Virgin Mary

Other doors

The Porta della Mandorla (left and centre) owes its name to the representation in the tympanum of the Assumption of the Virgin with an almond-shaped (mandorla) halo, while the relief above it is the Madonna of the Girdle by Nanni di Banco

The Porta dei Canonici (right) tympanum has a sculpture of the Madonna and Child attributed to Niccolò di Pietro Lamberti or Lorenzo di Niccolò, while the angels are by Lamberti

Museo dell’Opera del Duomo

It was a great example of travel serendipity that instead of visiting just the cathedral on a free entry basis we ended up paying for those additional three sights. While the crypt was interesting for its remains of the previous cathedral, and the baptistry worth seeing despite the restoration project, it was the third sight in the bundle, the cathedral’s museum, that was the highlight for me. Not only does it hold many of the original carvings from the cathedral, which have been removed for their protection and replaced by replicas, it also allows for a much closer look at their details.

Reconstruction of the original Duomo façade
Part of a reconstruction of the original Duomo façade, with Arnolfo di Cambio’s Glass-eyed Madonna in the centre
The Gate of Paradise

Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gate of Paradise, the east door of the Baptistry

Andrea Pisano’s hexagonal reliefs from the campanile
Agriculture
Jabal, or the beginning of life dedicated to pastoralism
The beginning of astronomy
The Weaving Mill
Sculpture

The Deposition by Michelangelo, with the figure of Nicodemus said to be modelled on himself. The piece was intended by him for his own tomb. But he became frustrated with flaws in the marble and deliberately damaged Christ’s left arm.

The Penitent Magdalena by Donatello, sculpted in white poplar. According to medieval legend, after the ascension of Jesus she went to live as a hermit of penance in the desert, and it is thus that Donatello depicts her.

I visited Florence in October/November 2025; these photos were taken over three days – one wet, one cloudy and one sunny!

49 Comments

Do share your thoughts, I'd love to hear from you! And please include your name in case WP marks you 'anonymous' - thank you