Baptistry of San Giovanni and Museo dell’Opera del Duomo

(This is part of our series of posts from our six-week Road Scholar Independent Living and Learning in Florence trip to Italy in Spring 2025. We have an index to all the posts from that trip here.)

We slept in for a bit on Sunday morning after our long day in Siena on Saturday. In the afternoon, we returned to the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flowers complex (the Duomo) for a tour of the Baptistry and the Duomo Museum.

The Baptistry of San Givoanni, adjacent to the Cathedral, is both a religious temple and a civic monument. The ceiling was covered during our visit for restoration of the mosaics that cover the ceiling–but thanks to the Italian law that requires a picture of what’s behind the fabric during restoration of a historic building, the pictures gave us some idea of what it looked like.

The altar in the Baptistry of San Giovanni. The Baptistry predates construction of the Duomo itself.

Mosaic ceiling in Baptistry of San Giovanni.

Interior wall of the Baptistry of San Giovanni.

Inlaid marble floor of the Baptistry, laid in the early 1200s.

After our visit to the interior of the Baptistry, our guide took us through the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo. “Opera” here has nothing to do with a musical play, but rather refers to the organization responsible for construction and maintenance of a cathedral.

The South Door of the Baptistry, now in the Museo (the ones on the Baptistry today are replicas) with stories of Saint John the Baptist, by Andrea Pisano (created 1330-1336). The South Doors were the first to receive artistic treatment.

The North Doors of the Baptistry, also now in the Museo, with stories of Christ, by Lorenzo Ghiberti (created 1403-1424). If you zoom in and compare this photo to that of the South Doors, you can see how the artists’ understandoing of perspective and depth changed over the course of 70 years.

And finally, the famous East Doors of the Baptistery (which Michelangelo dubbed the “Gates of Paradise”) with Old Testament stories, by Lorenzo Ghiberti (1425-1452). Again, Ghiberti’s skills took an enormous leap forward in just a couple of decades.

Ghiberti signed the East Door with an inscription across the middle: the inscription reads in Latin: Laurentii Cionis de Ghibertis mira[bile] arte fabricatum, meaning “This work was created by the admirable art of Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti”.

Ghiberti also included portraits of himself and his son and chief helper Vittore on the Gates of Paradise.

Saint Mary Magdalene as Penitent by Donatello (mid-15th century)

Michelangelo started the Pietà , his next-to-last (and probably second most-famous) sculpture, around 1546-1547, but abandoned it in 1555, when he mutilated it in frustration at finding flaws in the marble block. A black scar from the tool that the artist threw at the sculpture is still visible on Jesus’ left forearm. Pieced back together, the work was acquired in 1671 by Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and eventually transferred to the Duomo altar about 100 years later. The standing person holding the body of Jesus represents the biblical figure of Nicodemus but is actually the aged Michelangelo’s self-portrait.

The Duomo of Florence, seen from the terrace of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.

Exhibit showing tools that Brunelleschi invented to build the Duomo. His contemporaries said that the great dome could not be built, but he proved them wrong with a lot of ceativity and ingenuity.