Day 10 Florence: August 16

We started Saturday at the Duomo. Construction on the cathedral began in 1296 and was completed in 1436. As far as we can tell, the word "budget" was not part of the conversation when constructing this church. Every inch of the exterior is lavishly ornamented. The money for the church came from Florence's wool merchant guild. They formed the Opera del Duomo which still oversees maintenance and repairs for the church. The distinctive stripes on the exterior are created by white and green marble, with pink marble accents.

The beautiful mosaics over the each entrance were added in the late 1800s.

We bought tickets that allowed us to climb the 463 steps to the top of the dome. Our tickets let us in to a side entrance of the chapel. This was our first view inside, Compared to the outside of the church, the inside is rather plain.

The exception is the interior of the dome which is covered with scenes of the last judgement. It was painted between 1572 and 1579 by Giorgio Vasari and Frederico Zuccari.

The steps to the top of the dome were built for purposes of maintaining the dome, not for hosting hundreds of tourists each day. They are narrow and steep. However, compared to hiking between towns in Cinque Terre, they were light work. 

Our first stop was inside the church on a platform below the painted ceiling. This is the largest fresco in the world, painted on the largest masonry dome in the world. Looking across at the paintings instead of up at them from the ground helped us appreciate their scale. This side of the dome represents the happy side of judgment day.

Directly across from the image of Christ is the dreadful part of the great and dreadful day. The demon gobbling people up is quite terrifying.

We continued up stone stairs until we came out on top of the church.

The views of Florence from the top of the dome were amazing.

The big green roof that stands out amid the red time roofs is the Mercato Centrale, a giant market that was near our hotel.

The bell tower in this photo is part of the Duomo.

The tower in the center of this photo belongs to the Palazzo Vecchio.

We were impressed with the fins carvings of flowers and vegetables on the dome. We were about 110 meters in the air. an anonymous craftsman put a lot of skill and attention into this part of the dome which is not easily seen.

Here's a view of Brandan headed back down the stairs which helps illustrate how steep the stairs were.

We looked at a small display of tools and scaffolding to get an idea of the technology the builders used to construct the church.

After our trip to the top of the dome, we walked over to the bell tower, which was built between 1335 and 1359. The long line is for people who want to go inside the church. There wasn't a line for the bell tower.

Here's a view inside the bell tower looking up. The bell tower had three levels inside and one level outside at the top. There are only 414 steps to climb to get to the top of the bell tower.

The Apostolica bell is no longer used and is displayed on the second level.

We noticed a small shield that showed a lamb carrying a banner on the bell. We saw similar motifs in the exterior decoration of the cathedral.

Here's a view of the dome from the top of the bell tower.

Our last stop in the Duomo complex was the baptistry. The baptistry is the oldest part of the complex, built between 1059 and 1122. It has a distinctive octagonal shape.

The ceiling of the baptistry is covered with brilliant mosaics. Most of the ceiling is covered for repairs right now. We saw a small part of the decorations near the doorways of the baptistry.

The floor is as ornate as the ceiling.

The actual baptismal font is quite small in one corner, which is all that the church needs for their baptisms.  A limited number of children are still baptized here on the first Sunday of each month.

After touring the baptistry, we had a decision to make: should we go get lunch or tour the Museo Opera del Duomo, the museum run by the organization that built and maintains the Duomo? The correct answer was tour the museum. The building that houses the museum was originally a workshop. The architect of the dome of the Duomo, Fillipo Brunelleschi, had his offices here from 1371 to 1446. This is also the spot where Michelangelo carved his statue of David between 1501 and 1504. After the Duomo complex was finished, the Opera del Duomo used the space for storage and maintenance supplies. In the late 1800s, people started to appreciate the pieces of art that were stored here and the space became a museum, as well as a working space. In 1966, a destructive flood severely damaged the Duomo. As many of the statues were repaired and restored, the Opera decided to replace the sculptures and other artwork on the exterior of the Duomo with replicas, and move the originals into a climate controlled environment to protect them. The entire museum was upgraded and reimagined in 2015. While the Museo Opera del Duomo is not on a list of top attractions in Florence, it was the best museum we visited in Italy, standing out for its impressive collection of artwork, its skillful presentation, and its ability to educate and inspire visitors.

The original bronze doors of the baptistry were moved inside in 1990. The first set of doors were made by Andrea Pisano between 1333 and 1336 and depict stories from the life of John the Baptist. We didn't take photo of Pisano's doors. The Wool Merchants Guild held a competition in 1401 to make matching doors and Lorenzo Ghiberti won. His gilded bronze doors, depicting scenes from the New Testament, took 19 years to complete (1403 to 1424).

Here's a closer view of one of the panels that shows Jesus begin baptized by John the Baptist.

The guild was so happy with Ghiberti's doors that they commissioned him to build a last set of doors. This time, they asked for scenes from the Old Testament. Ghiberti worked on these doors from 1425 to 1452.

This panel shows the story of David and Goliath. David is cutting off Goliath's head while the Israelites and the Philistines fight behind him.

This statue by Donatello is labeled "Profeta pensieroso" which means "thoughtful prophet."

This interesting decoration by Pisano shows Eve literally being pulled from Adam's rib.

This detailed carving of sheep and cows was made in 1300 by Arnolfo di Cambio.

One gallery held beautiful furnishing that have been used inside the Duomo, like this rich fabric made in the 1600s.

Donatello made this singing gallery for the choir.

This massive music stand is over 9 ½ feet tall! If you make your music large enough, the entire choir can share one book.

We had seen several images of a lamb carrying a flag as we toured the Duomo complex. We assumed it was a symbol of Christ. In the museum we learned this particular representation of Agnus Dei, or Lamb of God, is the symbol of the Wool Merchants Guild, and therefore the symbol of the Opera del Duomo. This example is made of glazed terracotta.

Here's another example of the Agnus Dei. This is part of a marble mosaic floor made in the 1400s.

The museum includes Brunelleschi's models for the dome.

And Brunelleschi's death mask. The cathedral was planned to have a dome from 1300, but it took over a hundred years for a visionary architect to invent a way to achieve the dome's creation.

This photo is taken from the Opera del Duomo's website. The wall lists some of the artists who contributed to the Duomo over the hundreds of years of its creation.

We could have stayed longer at the Museo Opera del Duomo, but we had tickets for the Galleria dell'Accademia at 3 pm. The Accademia is home to Michaelangelo's David and is one of the most visited locations in Florence. Buying tickets in advance meant we could skip a long line. The Accademia began as a school for artists in the 1700s, housed in a building that was formerly a convent and a hospital. The enormous statue of David was moved from its original location outside the Palazzo Vecchio to the Accademia in 1873 and it opened to the public in 1892.

Since most of the visitors were headed to see David, we thought we'd check out some of the other exhibits first. A display of musical instruments collected by the Medici family opened in the museum in 2001. We were surprised to see several instruments built by Bartolomeo Cristofori, the inventor of the piano. Cristofori was born in Padua, but Ferdinando Medici brought him to Florence where he curated and repaired Ferdinando's large collection of instruments. Cristofori also invented several instruments, like this narrow harpsichord designed to fit in a crowded orchestra pit.

This is another Cristofori invention, an oval shaped spinet. Only three pianos built by Cristofori survive, one in New York City, one in Rome, and one in Leipzig. While we didn't see an original piano, we enjoyed learning about Cristofori's time in Florence and seeing other instruments he invented. Brandan and all of our children have learned to play the song "Cristofori's Dream" by David Lanz, and he is a household name in our family.

The musical instrument gallery unexpectedly led to the hall with the statue of David. Every museum is not as nicely organized as the Museo Opera del Duomo. Seventeen feet tall without its pedestal and carved from a single block of marble, David is worthy of every superlative it has been described with for the last 521 years.

While made of marble, David is so lifelike and natural it would not be surprising for him to step down from his pedestal and walk confidently away. Giorgio Vasari, an artist from the 1500s who also wrote a biography of Michelangelo wrote, " Whoever has seen this work need not trouble to see any other work excepted in sculpture, either in our own or in other times."

Daniele da Volterra, Michelangelo's friend, sculpted this bust after his death.

The same hall the displays David has several unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo. These statues were originally intended for Pope Julius II's tomb (the one we saw back in Rome with Michelangelo's statue of Moses.) Pope Julis II interrupted Michelangelo's sculpting to have him paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. These unfinished statues provide clues to Michelangelo's process for sculpting.

The gallery ends in a big room filled with paintings and plaster models of statues. It kind of feels like a closet of art.

This is a plaster model of Brunelleschi, the architect and engineer of the dome of the Duomo.

Here is a statue of Niccolo Machiavelli, who was born in Florence in 1469. his expression appropriately looks like he is scheming.

Leaving the Accademia, we stopped by the Mercato Centrale to buy food for the next day, Sunday. Most of the stands were closed for the day, but we bought some excellent produce from a vendor.

Earlier we had stopped by a paper store and decided to return to buy a couple of gifts. Florence is know for their decorative paper.

The shopkeeper demonstrated how endpapers were traditionally decorated, the method Il Papiro still uses, by dripping paint onto a gel and then pressing paper onto the gel. She used acrylic paint in the store, but the real paper is made using oil paints, which are smellier and take longer to dry.

We continued to take advantage of the public water fountains.

We stopped for dinner at one of the many restaurants.

We realized this would be our last dinner out in Italy. Becky decided to try lasagna since she had heard American lasagna is not the same as Italian lasagna. Brandan had tortellini filled with potato and covered with ragu, an Italian meat sauce. Italian lasagna is different than American, actually kind of bland, and was the only dish Becky tried that she preferred the American version. The potato filling in Brandan's pasta was delicious.

We walked past the Santa Trinita, or Trinity Church on our way to watch the sunset. This church was first built in 1092 and rebuilt in its current form in the 1200s. The carving over the door caught our attention. Usually we saw artwork that depicted Mary holding Jesus after his death, a scene that is called The Pieta, or pity. This looks to be God holding Jesus, which doesn't make any sense if you literally believe in the Trinity.

Here is the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence.

Here we are watching the sunset over the Arno River.

Here is one last photo from Saturday.