About
A unique museum complex
One “Big Museum” (il Grande Museo del Duomo) will allow you to admire the interior of the Cathedral and the Baptistery, go down to the excavations of the ancient temple and climb to 2 viewing platforms of the Dome and the Bell Tower. Having admired the beauty and appreciated the grandeur and majesty of the Florence Cathedral, many tourists are sure that they have already seen “all the most important things” in the city. And they are wrong! The originals of many masterpieces of the cathedral complex are kept in the Museum of the Cathedral, located behind the apsidal part of the Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore. Here you will find a new surge of interest!
One of the largest museums of sacred art in the world
The name “opera” should not be misleading. Opera del Duomo in Italy is a museum at a large city cathedral, which exhibits works of art created at different times to decorate it. The museum is truly fabulous, unusual, exceptional, very beautiful and comfortable, one of the few in Florence, ready to welcome visitors from dawn to dusk.
Inside is the world’s best collection of sculpture, marble, bronze and silver reliefs, paintings, ancient manuscripts, wooden models, liturgical vestments, sacred utensils, reliquaries, housed in 28 rooms on 3 floors of the new museum building. The magnificent exhibition allows you to show in the best possible way the unique masterpieces of Arnolfo di Cambio, Andrea Pisano, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Luca della Robbia, Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Andrea Verrocchio … up to Michelangelo, whose amazing “Pietà Bandini” depicts Christ and Nicodemus, a late work of the great sculptor, intended for his own tomb. In addition, you will be presented with all sorts of models, drawings, documents, construction equipment and mechanisms that Filippo Brunelleschi used to build his unrivaled Dome.
Sacred Splendor
The most grandiose and impressive treasure of the exhibition is the colossal model (made of rubber and marble chips) of the facade of the Florentine Cathedral, begun by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296, never finished and then destroyed in 1587, in the main hall of the museum. About 40 sculptures of the Trecento and early Quattrocento were collected to decorate it, including the famous “Madonna with Glass Eyes” by di Cambio himself and “Saint John the Evangelist” by Donatello, who served as inspiration for Michelangelo when creating “Moses”. The “Hall of Paradise” and the new Cathedral Museum are able to amaze even the most indifferent to art people with their sacred splendor!
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