Panoramio, Junjun Guo

The Baptistery of San Giovanni (Italian: Battistero di San Giovanni) is a medieval (Romanesque-style) baptistery on Piazza del Duomo and Piazza di San Giovanni, next to Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral and Giotto's Campanile in Florence, one of the oldest buildings in the city. Like most baptisteries, it is dedicated to John the Baptist. The first baptistery was built in Florence no later than the 5th century. The building that exists today was constructed from 1059 to 1129. Until the 19th century, all natives of Florence were baptized here. Among them were Dante and the Medici. The semicircular apse was replaced with a rectangular one in the 13th century. The dome vault is decorated with Byzantine mosaics of the 13th-14th centuries. The central mosaic depicts the scene of the Last Judgment with the figure of Christ in the center. The tomb of Antipope John XXIII is also located in the baptistery.

Flickr, seitre

Giotto's Bell Tower (Italian: Campanile di Giotto) is the campanile of the cathedral (Duomo) in Florence. Standing separately from Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral and the Baptistery of San Giovanni, the tower is one of the finest examples of Florentine Gothic architecture. The sculptural decoration of the campanile is the most important work of the Italian Trecento, demonstrating an exquisite blend of monumentality and Gothic delicacy. The campanile was created by three masters: Giotto, who made the overall design and completed the first tier; Andrea Pisano, who in the 1340s added the next tier with tall bifora windows; and finally Francesco Talenti, who completed the campanile and clad it in three types of marble. The tower's foundation was laid as early as 1298 by Arnolfo di Cambio, the chief architect of the nearby cathedral, whose construction had begun two years earlier. However, four years later the architect died, and construction of the tower was interrupted for more than 30 years.

itinera.serevo.it

Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral (Italian: La Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore) is the cathedral in Florence, the most famous of the architectural works of the Florentine Quattrocento. It is located in the very heart of the city on the cathedral square. Architecturally notable are the dome, created from a design by Filippo Brunelleschi, and the exterior wall cladding with polychrome marble panels in various shades of green (from Prato) and pink (from Maremma), with a white border (from Carrara). The Duomo (Italian: Duomo), also known as Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore), was designed so that it could accommodate the entire population of the city (at the time of construction - 90000 people), that is, it was something like a huge covered square. The cathedral's red dome, which became the symbol of Florence, seems to hover over the entire city.

Flickr, Tama Leaver

The Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore (Italian: Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore) is a museum in Florence that opened on May 3, 1891. The museum displays masterpieces from Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, where copies of them are now housed. It is located behind the apse of Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in a palace that had already been used by Donatello and Brunelleschi as a workshop during the construction of the cathedral. The first stone of the future museum building was laid on September 8, 1296, and the building itself, by decision of the Florentine Republic, was intended for the administration of the construction of Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral. Today the museum also houses restoration workshops.