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After yesterday’s long day, I would say some were still a bit tired. We had one planned event in the morning and then free time after that until dinner.

Today we toured the Il Duomo complex – Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, Crypt of Santa Reparata, and Opera del Duomo Museum. The Baptistry was being renovated inside, and we chose not to climb to the top of the Bell Tower. We decided to hire a tour guide for 3 hours for the Duomo complex. Turned out to be a great idea.

Cristina, our tour guide booked through ToursbyLocals.com, met us at our hotel at 9:30AM. She gave her plan to go to the museum first, then the cathedral before heading downstairs to the crypt, while walking the short 5 minutes to the Duomo Piazza. Our timed entry into cathedral was for 11AM.

The museum is housed in a non-descript building behind the cathedral. It was the original workshop and storage warehouse during construction starting in 1296. The dome wasn’t completed until 1436, with the “golden ball” placed on top in 1471. The final marble facade was completed in 1887, which meant the church exterior was simply brick until that time. The original statues around the church and the carved Baptistry doors were moved indoors to this warehouse, when the marble facade was installed, with replicas created to replace the originals. Today’s modern museum now showcases these originals. Cristina showed us the difference between the stillness and lack of anatomical details of most artists of the time, versus the innovative work of Donatello, whose work showed emotion, anatomical details and motion. His influence on others like Michelangelo is readily apparent. Christina had us walk all around Michelangelo’s Pieta. It was then that you realize there used to be a swirling flow of the statue, with the bodies twisting, arms and legs all moving in a common circular direction. Motion captured in a marble statue.

We then moved to the Baptistry doors. The East doors “The Gates of Paradise”, are ten panels of the Old Testament, as an early work of Lorenzo Ghiberti.

The North doors are twenty panels that depict the New Testament, also by Ghiberti. New concepts of depth perception begin to appear in these panels.

The South doors has 28 doors depicting the life of St. John the Baptist by Andrea Pisano.

We also had a chance to see the silver alter from the Baptistry that took over 100 years to complete. It showcases the mastery of silver- and goldsmiths, and is now on display in the museum.

Christina took us up to roof top terrace for a great view of the back of the cathedral and dome.

We left the museum for our 11AM timed tickets to the cathedral. Unfortunately, even with timed tickets, there was a long line to get in. The wait was about 20 minutes. While waiting we witnessed a common Florentine custom for university graduates. They go with friends and family to a public place, like the Piazza Duomo to celebrate with flowers, toasts, and prosecco.

I also had time to capture some detailed photos of the Cathedral’s neo-gothic white, green and pink marble exterior along with an ongoing inspection of the bell tower.

The cathedral interior, compared with the extravagant exterior, was a little disappointing with its jk plainness. But when you walk up towards the sanctuary and then look up to the dome, you have to say, “wow!”

The Last Judgement was started by Giorgio Vasari in 1572, and upon his death, completed by Frederico Zuccari in 1579. Opposing sides of the fresco have God in Heaven versus Lucifer in Hell, with stories portrayed in the rising levels. There are 700 figures painted, many using famous kings and rulers faces.

From there, we went downstairs to the crypt. This is primarily the ruins of the original Roman city, the original church Santa Reparata, and the tomb of Brunelleschi.

The tour ended with Christina explaining the front face of the Cathedral outside, now a neo-gothic design with the marble facing. It’s more than figures of popes and saints. It includes the contemporary people of the time; Galileo, Michelangelo, Di Vinci, Brunelleschi, Vespucci, etc.

After the tour, we found an outdoor cafe for lunch. Afterwards, some of the group went back to the hotel to relax and play cards and a few others of us went out shopping around the Mercato Centrale, that has lots of vendor booths along the curbs. In Mercato Centrale, a food/produce market, I found a charming booth of a family run winery/olive oil/agritourismo. We took everybody back there the next day, so I’ll discuss it further in tomorrow’s blog.

Dinner was at Osteria del Giglio, right around the corner from the hotel. It was recommended by the concierge, but we couldn’t get a table the first night. It was a bit of a disappointment, compared to all the amazing meals we’ve had so far. They clearly had a service / kitchen issue, as it was extremely slow and the orders weren’t delivered correctly and some weren’t at the level of our other dinners.