The Duomo

After the Academy, we headed over to the monolithic Duomo of Florence, a mere ten minutes away.  After purchasing our tickets, we looked over at the line to actually get into the cathedral itself and decided our best bet was to head into the baptistry, a logical setup considering that you had to be baptized before they'd let you in back in the day.  The baptistry is actually older than the current cathedral by about a century; the interior ceiling is covered with 13th century Venetian mosaics depicting scenes from Christ's life.  Towards the front ceiling, Christ sits in judgement with the faithful on his right in glory and the condemned in judgement to his left.

Heading out of the baptistry, we headed towards the Duomo museum, but noticed the line going in the bell tower was relatively short and called an audible.  Rick Steves actually recommends climbing the bell tower over the Brunelleschi's dome on the cathedral; first off, the line is much shorter, and secondly, you can actually see the dome from the bell tower.  We stood in line for about half and hour and chatted with a man from Colorado who was behind us touring Italy in a camper with his kids and grandkids, then we headed up the tall, narrow structure.

The typical 14th century Florentine is not built at all like Arthur is.  He spent much of the time working up the spiral staircase with his shoulders turned so people coming down could pass.  The base of the bell tower is perhaps 15 yards square and extends straight up about 90 yards; there was a lot of spiral to the staircase.  The structure is divided into five stages with an open floor between each stage; allowing the stragglers to catch their breath and look out on a slowly descending Florence below.  This allow for some truly magnificent views of rooftops and allowed you to appreciate just how massive the dome of the cathedral is.

We headed down the stairs and over the the Duomo museum.  Most of the artwork exposed to the weather on from the Duomo are copies; the originals are inside this museum.  It was pretty amazing getting to see statues originally viewed looking from the ground up seven stories right in front of you.  Ghemberti's bronze doors, which I couldn't believe were still attached to the baptistry, are actually housed here and preserved for all time.  It was fun getting an up-close look (you could get a better view of the actual doors than you could the copies on the baptistry) at the intricate detail and the stories depicted.

We next saw Michelangelo's Deposition, a masterpiece among the many masterpieces he completed during his long productive life.  The hooded figure in the back is actually the artist himself; he originally meant this to be his gravestone.

We also saw some reliquaries, special boxes housing the relics that drove pilgrims to, well, pilgrimage.  It was pretty amazing to think about the veneration these objects have been held in throughout the years.  Standing out in my mind is the jawbone of St. Jerome and the thumb bone of St. John the Baptist.

Also inside the museum we saw some of the original scaffolding used to erect the Duomo and several of the objects that had been used to perform the sacraments and religious ceremonies in the cathedral over the years.  Overall the museum was a very cool stop along the way we would highly recommend.

We headed out of the museum and decided to walk around the cathedral to see what the line was like to get in.  Much to our surprise, we could just about walk straight in unhindered.  A great travel tip we picked up during this experience was that tourists want to eat at noon to one o'clock, so if you can delay lunch for an hour or two, you can dramatically cut down on the time you spend in line.  There were days on this trip that we completely went without lunch to maximize our sightseeing and we never regretted it.

The interior of the Duomo itself is, dare I say it, underwhelming compared to its dramatic facade and dramatic scale.  Most of the stuff that make it cool were inside the museum we had just gone through.  I had wanted to see the interior of the dome itself, but that area was roped off, one of the few disappointments we had on our trip.  The true treat of going inside the cathedral lies underneath.

The Duomo is built on the remains of four earlier churches, the earliest of which was built while the ancient Roman empire ruled Florence.  Archaeological digs have since exposed some of the ancient mosaics of the original basilica.  It is amazing how archaeological time gets pressed together; that original basilica was rebuilt three times before the current Duomo was constructed, but this was over a time span five times as long as the United States has existed.  The tombs of some important Florentines, including the Medici who really got the family going, reside down there; they are almost our contemporaries compared to the original structure.

Anyway, that was our exposure to the Duomo.  In our next post, we'll try to finish day our full day of Florence.  Omnia Vincit Amour.