The doors are the reason to come. Ghiberti won the competition for the north doors in 1401, beating Brunelleschi — who, the story goes, left for Rome to study architecture instead, which is how Florence got its dome. Ghiberti then spent decades on the east doors, the ones Michelangelo is said to have called the Gates of Paradise.
⚠️ The panels on the building are copies. The originals are indoors at the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, out of the weather, and that is where to see them properly.
Inside, the whole vault is covered in thirteenth-century gold-ground mosaic, with an enormous Christ in Judgement above the altar end.
⭐ Look at the doors from the square for free, then see the real panels in the museum.
The Baptistery of San Giovanni in pictures
