Florence Cathedral interior

On entering what is the jewel in Florence’s crown, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore the visitor is immediately struck by the sheer size of the building:  At 153 metres long, 38 wide, and 90 metres high, its Gothic interior is vast and surprisingly sparsely decorated, especially for the centre-piece of such a culturally rich city.  Many of the decorations in the church have been lost in the course of time, or have been transferred to the Museum Opera del Duomo, Florence’s cathedral museum, but there are still many significant works of religious art on display, such as Dante’s Divine Comedy by di Michelino, and Paolo Uccelo’s Funerary Monument.

Above the main door is the colossal clock face with fresco portraits of Uccelo’s four Prophets, one of the very few examples of this type of clock still in existence.  But above all the fascinating features and artefacts in this most famous of Florentine buildings, the stained glass windows are surely the most memorable – all 44 of them.  Created in the 14^th and 15^th centuries, they depict scenes from the Old and New Testaments and are the work of the greatest artists of the age such as Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Paolo Uccello and Andrea del Castagno.  Truly beautiful works of art in Florence, a city full of them.

Florence Cathedral exterior

Even in a city of architectural and artistic wonders such as Florence, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is a particular treasure.  Possibly one of Florence’s most iconic buildings, the Duomo, as it is more commonly known, was begun in 1296 and completed 140 years later.  The dome itself is one of the great achievements of Renaissance architecture, and is the result of a competition held in 1419 to design what was to become the centrepiece of the cathedral, with Filippo Brunelleschi eventually winning the commission.  The fact that he chose to construct it from stone posed many technical problems, and it was in overcoming these problems that Brunelleschi was to complete one of the most impressive architectural achievements of the age – Despite weighing 37,000 tons and containing over 4 million bricks, Florence cathedral’s dome was made without the use of any type of scaffolding or supports, and remains the world’s largest.

Just as striking in their originality, but much more recent in their execution are Florence cathedral’s exterior walls, which are faced in alternate vertical and horizontal bands of red, white, and green marble. This was designed by Emilio De Fabris in 1864, and despite the huge difference in age between the facade and the rest of Florence cathedral, its delicacy of form and voluptuous decoration fit seamlessly with the rest of this remarkable and unforgettable building.