Duomo of Florence or the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is a cathedral in Florence. It’s a huge impressive building and the most famous building of Quattrocento Florence. The building is especially noted for its dome designed by Brunelleschi, Cambio and Giotto and also for its facade covered with white and green marble and a lot of sculptures.
Duomo of Florence or the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore
The construction of Duomo started in 1296 on the site of an earlier cathedral. The cathedral was consecrated in 1436 but it got its final modern form only in 1887. Inside the church you will also be impressed by a clock running the wrong direction and granite floor.
The Florence Baptistery – Battistero di San Giovanni
In front of Duomo there is the Baptistery mainly noted for its east doors which were built in 1425-1452 by Ghiberti and which Michelangelo called the Gates of Paradise. He placed ten Bible stories on ten golden plates and if you look from up to down and from right to left you will read the following stories:
Exile from the Garden of Eden
Murder of Abel
Noah
The Sacrifice of Isaac
Esau and Jacob
Joseph Sold to the Merchants
The Giving of the Torah
Walls of Jericho
War with Plishtim
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
These gates are certainly one of the brightest works of art in entire Florence. By the way, Ghiberti, the author of the gates, perpetuated his name placing his own bust right on the gates.
We walked from Duomo through Dante’s House to Signoria Square (Piazza della Signoria) which is considered to be the most striking and interesting place in Florence.
