If not for the Catholic church, it might have been known as the Brunelleschi Dome, like the Eiffel Tower.
It dominates the city's skyline in the same unmistakable way.
Filippo Brunelleschi had a lot more going for him than Eiffel, in spite of the latter's world-wide name recognition. He's considered the father of Renaissance architecture, he supervised the construction of the Duomo di Firenze and he secured the first patent in history, among other accomplishments.
It's hard to get an unobstructed view of Brunelleschi's masterwork, an unimpeachable example of how workarounds can inspire creativity: design competitors were forbidden from using buttresses. The resulting Duomo cleanly broke with the Gothic era.
Construction of the Cathedral of St. Mary the Flower (its formal name) began more than a century before Brunelleschi, with the backing of the Medici family, won the dome design competition but didn't assume sole responsibility for the project until three years later, in 1423. Giotto had designed the campanile nearby before his death in 1334.
I resisted the temptation to climb to the top of the campanile knowing that my knees would howl on the way down.
Emilio De Fabris didn't design the facade until the late 19th century.
His use of polychrome marble makes the Duomo even more distinctive IMHO. It's also neo-Gothic, meaning the architecture has almost come full circle since 1296 when the first papal representative ever sent to Florence from Rome laid the initial brick.
Interior
The cathedral presents as surprisingly empty when you enter, perhaps because of the vastness of the space and the relocation of much of the art to the adjacent museum.
A number of artists--most notably Giorgio Vasari who painted scenes from "The Last Judgment" around the bottom perimeter--contributed to the dome's interior
This liturgical clock--set to "Italian time" with 24 hours ending at sunset, a standard used until the 18th century--still works, 582 years after its installation.
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| Trompe-l'Oeil of Niccolò da Tolentino Andrea del Castagno |
Michelangelo, who had been contracted to sculpt the twelve apostles for the Dumo's interior, left Florence after almost finishing only Saint Matthew, who now stands in the Accademia, keeping an eye on the artist's most famous creation. I haven't been able to identify this apostle, or his sculptor.
Santa Reparta
My ticket included admission to the Santa Reparta Cathedral buried below the Duomo, built early in the fifth century when the city's population was much smaller. Little of what remains can be definitively dated, although the discovery of Roman coins has helped refine hypotheses.
Archeologists believe that Christian worshippers trod on this mosaic, which recalls the motifs favored during the Roman Empire, as early as the fourth century.
These bronze spurs belonged to a knight and early member of the Medici dynasty who served as the Gonfaloniere (magistrate) of Justice for Florence from 1351 to 1352, the year of his death and burial in Santa Reparta. His tomb wasn't discovered until an excavation of the area that began in 1965 and lasted nearly a decade.
I didn't do justice to the Baptistry, perhaps because I never have been baptized.
Modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, it was undergoing renovation in any case, as were many of the sites I visited.
Dante's parents carried their child through its bronze doors one morning for the ceremony. In The Divine Comedy, he expresses his unrealized hope to return to his baptismal font wearing the laurel crown of a poet.
The Duomo did him one better; when the facade was completed, it included his image as "il Sommo Poeta," or Supreme Poet. For once, he's not scowling.
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| Dante Aligheri by Cesare Fantacchiotti (plaster model, 1882-87) |
No wonder the Duomo itself looked so barren. Much of the good stuff is displayed here.
Like Dante (and da Vinci, too) Brunelleschi gazes out from the facade, thoughtfully.
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| Filippo Brunelleschi by Cesare Fantacchiotti (plaster model, 1882-87) |
A pristine model of his dome dominates one gallery
. . . where some of the rudimentary tools used by his construction crew also are on display.
The terrace on top of the museum offers a close-up view of the dome, just across the piazza.
You couldn't ask for a more beautifully designed museum, completely renovated a decade ago, although I found the layout quite confusing.
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| "Mary in Majesty" by Arnolfo di Cambio (1300-05) & Backrest of Mary's Throne (1295-1305) |
The work of Donatello, including this magnificent singing gallery (1433-39), is well-represented in the collection.
These are among 24 bas reliefs figures that Baccio Bandinelli and Giovanni dell' Opera sculpted for the church's choir. Nudity's juxtaposition startles in between the robed men.
The "Sacrifice of Isaac" by Donatello and Nanni di Bartolo (1421) once adorned the campanile. The sculptors capture the tense moment a father is spared the anguish of slashing his son's throat through the intervention of an unseen angel, a story that upset me in Bible School which I briefly attended in Heidelberg, mostly for the reward of a block of vanilla ice cream at the end of each class. It also made me extremely skeptical of loyalty tests.
Many of the small marble reliefs carved for the exterior of the campanile depict non-religious scenes and mythological figures, a welcome--and surprising--respite from all the Christian iconography.
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| "Plato & Aristotle: Dialectics" by Luca della Robbia (1437-39) |
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| "Daedalus: The Mechanical Arts" by Andrea Pisano (partial, 1348-50) |
Michelangelo began sculpting "The Deposition"--also known as the Florentine Pietà--at the age of 72 (!), using his own face as the model for the man in the hoodie, whose identity has been much debated. The artist, naturally legacy-conscious, worked on what was to be part of his tomb for eight years before attempting to destroy the statue for unknown reasons, although some historians have speculated that he was frustrated to realize the block of marble wasn't large enough to do what he envisioned. After Michelangelo sold it instead, the new owner had an apprentice sculptor finish the job, minus Christ's left leg. "The Deposition" eventually ended up in the Duomo.
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| Christ by Florentine Artist (Early 16th Century) |
A video display afford's a close-up look at the Duomo's stained glass.
Nothing in the museum impressed me more than this silver altar illustrating scenes from the life of Saint John the Baptist. Begun in 1367, it took more than a century to complete and was used for special occasions in the Baptistry. An opportunity to get baptized on it as an adult might be an even bigger incentive than getting into heaven.
You don't often see Saint John's head on a platter in three dimensions!
I 💗 reliquaries, too.
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| Reliquary by Pasquino da Montepulciano (1470-80) |
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| Reliquary of St. Jerome by Antonio di Salvi (1487) |
More Northern Italy
Florence
Bologna
Venice
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