The Duomo Complex

How the complex is ticketed

The five monuments on and around Piazza del Duomo are run together by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, and they are sold as passes rather than as individual admissions. ⭐ Entering the cathedral itself is free — it is the only part that is, and it has its own queue, separate from every ticketed part.

⛔ Only one pass includes the climb up the dome, and that climb also requires a timed reservation. This is the single most important booking decision of a Florence trip, because the slots are limited by the width of a six-hundred-year-old stairway and they go weeks ahead in season.

The practical order is: find the dome slot first, then build the rest of the day round it. Everyone who does it the other way arrives to discover there is nothing left.

Which climb to choose

There are two climbs and they are not the same experience. The dome takes you through the gap between the two shells and out at the lantern — it is the engineering, and the only place you see how the thing is built. Giotto's campanile is a few metres lower, has landings to rest on, and gives you the view with the dome in it.

⭐ If you only climb one and you want the photograph everyone recognises, climb the campanile. If you want to understand the building, climb the dome.

⚠️ Neither has a lift, both are narrow, and the dome is one-way once you start.

What most people skip

The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo holds the original Gates of Paradise, Donatello's Magdalene, Michelangelo's late Pietà, and the models and machinery from the dome's construction. It is included on the same passes and it is reliably the emptiest room in the complex.

⚠️ The relief panels on the Baptistery doors and around the base of the campanile are copies. The originals are all indoors in that museum.

⭐ Go to the museum after climbing the dome, not before. It is the page of explanation that makes the climb make sense.