Florence Cathedral

Santa Maria del Fiore was begun in 1296 to be the grandest church in Tuscany, and for more than a century it stood with a hole in the roof forty-odd metres across, because nobody knew how to cover it. Filippo Brunelleschi did, and his dome is still the largest ever built in brick and stone. The cathedral underneath is free. The dome is not, and it is the part most visitors get wrong: you need one particular pass, and a timed slot that can sell out weeks ahead.

A hole in the roof for a hundred years

The Florentines laid the first stone in 1296, to a design by Arnolfo di Cambio, on the site of an older and smaller cathedral dedicated to Santa Reparata. The city was rich on wool and banking and meant to outbuild Siena and Pisa. The plan fixed an octagonal crossing so wide that no wooden centring could be built to hold up a vault over it while the mortar set, and as the nave went up through the fourteenth century the problem was simply left for later.

In 1418 the Opera del Duomo held a competition. Brunelleschi, a goldsmith by training, won it with a scheme that needed no centring at all: two shells, one inside the other, laid in rings of brick that locked together as they rose. Work began in 1420 and the dome was closed in 1436, the year Pope Eugene IV consecrated the cathedral on 25 March. It has no flying buttresses. The lantern on top was finished after Brunelleschi’s death, and the gilded copper ball was raised in 1471.

The visitor’s cheat sheet

What to see, in the order you meet it

The façade

Most people assume the front is medieval. It is not. Arnolfo’s façade was left unfinished, and in 1587 it was torn down to make way for a modern one that was never built. For three centuries the cathedral had a plain front, painted for festivals. The present marble façade, in the white of Carrara, the green of Prato and the red of the Maremma, was designed by Emilio De Fabris after a competition of 1864, and completed in 1887 in a Gothic Revival style meant to match the flanks.

The nave

Inside, the contrast is startling. After the crowded marble outside, the nave is broad, grey and spare, with four huge bays and very little furniture. The Florentines spent their money on the building rather than on filling it, and much of what did fill it is now in the museum across the road. Give your eyes a minute, then look at the walls.

Uccello’s clock

Turn round. High on the inside of the west wall is the clock Paolo Uccello painted in 1443, with four heads of prophets in the corners. It has one hand, which moves anticlockwise round twenty-four hours, and the twenty-fourth hour falls at sunset: this is hora italica, Italian time, by which the day ended when the light did.

Two horsemen who are not statues

On the north wall of the nave are two mounted commanders. Both look like bronze or marble monuments; both are painted on the plaster. One is Sir John Hawkwood, an English mercenary who led Florence’s armies and died in 1394. The city had promised him a marble statue, and in 1436 settled for a fresco by Paolo Uccello, in green earth to imitate bronze. Beside him is Niccolò da Tolentino, painted by Andrea del Castagno in 1456 to match.

Dante and the city

Further along the north aisle hangs Domenico di Michelino’s painting of 1465: Dante, who was exiled from Florence and never came back, holding the Divine Comedy outside the city walls, with hell behind him and, rather anachronistically, this cathedral with its finished dome beside him.

The Last Judgment in the dome

Stand under the crossing and look up. The inside of the dome is covered by the largest fresco in Florence, a Last Judgment begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1572 and finished after his death by Federico Zuccari in 1579. Florentines have argued about it ever since; plenty of them would rather have Brunelleschi’s brickwork. You will see it twice: from the floor, and much closer from the gallery round its base on the way up the dome.

Santa Reparata

Steps from the nave lead down to the excavated remains of the earlier cathedral, Santa Reparata, with parts of its floor mosaics and later tombs. The excavations of the 1960s and 1970s also found the tomb of Brunelleschi himself, buried under the dome he built. The crypt is on all three passes.

Climbing the dome

The climb starts at the Porta della Mandorla on the north side. The 463 steps run up between the two shells of the dome, so you see how it was built: the brick laid in herringbone courses that lock each ring in place, the passages narrowing and the walls curving over your head as you near the top. Halfway up you walk round the inside of the drum, a few metres from Vasari’s painted devils. Then you come out at the lantern, with all of Florence below you.

Giotto’s campanile

The bell tower beside the cathedral was begun by Giotto in 1334, continued by Andrea Pisano and finished by Francesco Talenti, faced in the same three marbles. Its 414 steps are a little easier than the dome’s, with landings to rest on, and from the top the dome is in front of you rather than under your feet. In 2026 the tower is being restored, and scaffolding may cut part of the view.

The Baptistery

Opposite the façade stands the octagonal Baptistery of San Giovanni, in green and white marble, which the Florentines believed was a Roman temple. It is Romanesque, and older than the cathedral; Dante was baptised in it. Its vault is covered in thirteenth-century gold mosaics with a huge Christ in judgement. They are being restored, and parts may be screened while the work goes on.

The Opera del Duomo Museum

Do not skip the museum. It holds the originals of almost everything that has been taken down from the buildings outside: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s gilded bronze doors for the Baptistery, which Michelangelo is said to have called the Gates of Paradise (the doors on the Baptistery are copies); Michelangelo’s late Pietà, which he carved for his own tomb and then attacked with a hammer; Donatello’s wooden Mary Magdalene; and a full-size reconstruction of Arnolfo’s unfinished façade, with its original statues. It is on every pass, and it is open when the cathedral is not.

Tickets and tours

Don’t miss

• The inside of the dome From the gallery on the way up, a few metres from Vasari’s Last Judgment.
• Brunelleschi’s herringbone brick Visible between the shells as you climb.
• Uccello’s clock One hand, anticlockwise, and the day ending at sunset.
• Sir John Hawkwood An Englishman on horseback, painted to look like bronze.
• The Gates of Paradise The originals, in the museum, at eye level.
• Michelangelo’s Pietà Carved for his own tomb, broken by his own hand.
• Brunelleschi’s tomb In the crypt, under the dome he built.

Insider tips

If the dome is sold out for your dates, do not pay a reseller a large premium without checking what you are buying: the Giotto Pass and the bell tower are a fine second best, and the tower’s view has the dome in it.

Wear shoes with grip and leave the big bag at the hotel. Neither climb has a lift, and medium and large bags have to go to the left-luggage office on the piazza.

Look at the outside of the dome from somewhere else as well. The terrace of Piazzale Michelangelo, across the Arno, shows how it sits over the whole city, which is the point of it.

Where to stay and eat nearby

The Duomo is ten minutes’ walk from Santa Maria Novella station, straight up Via Panzani and Via de’ Cerretani, and the tram from the airport stops beside the station. Anywhere in the centre is within walking distance; the streets just east of the cathedral, round Borgo degli Albizi, are quieter in the evening than the piazza itself.

More churches in Italy

• Milan Cathedral — the other great Italian cathedral of the same century, all marble and spires.
• St Mark’s Basilica — two hours away by fast train, gold mosaic instead of marble.
• St Peter’s Basilica — whose dome Michelangelo designed with Brunelleschi’s in mind.
• The Pantheon — the Roman dome Brunelleschi went to Rome to study.

See all the Italian churches in this guide →