Florence Cathedral

Florence Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

The cathedral nave is free to enter, and the queue for it moves steadily along the north side of the building. Everything else in the complex is sold as one pass rather than piecemeal: dome, bell tower, baptistery, crypt and the cathedral museum are covered by a single ticket valid for several days. There are two versions. The cheaper one leaves out Brunelleschi's dome, which is the reason most people come; the full pass includes it with a compulsory timed slot that you must reserve when you buy, and slots go first thing.

If stairs are a problem, note that neither the dome nor Giotto's campanile has a lift, and the dome is 463 steps with a narrow passage between the two shells near the top. The bell tower is 414 steps and gives you the view that includes the dome, which the dome itself cannot. Guided tours cost more than the pass alone and mostly buy you a reserved dome slot plus explanation; after-hours tours of the cathedral, when the building is closed to the public, are the one genuinely exclusive product here.

Visiting Florence Cathedral: what to see

Building began in 1296 to a design by Arnolfo di Cambio and dragged on for 140 years, leaving a hole over the crossing that no one knew how to cover until Brunelleschi won the competition in 1418 and raised the largest masonry dome ever built, without a full timber centring. The interior of the church is surprisingly austere, its scale doing the work; above you the dome is painted with a swarming Last Judgment by Vasari and Zuccari that you meet face to face on the climb.

The green, pink and white marble outside is mostly a nineteenth-century facade over a medieval body. Across the square, the baptistery holds the gilded bronze doors Michelangelo is said to have called the Gates of Paradise, though the panels there now are copies; the originals are in the museum along with Donatello's Mary Magdalene and Michelangelo's late, unfinished Pieta. The crypt under the nave shows the foundations of Santa Reparata, the earlier cathedral, and Brunelleschi's tomb.

Florence Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

The cathedral opens mid-morning and closes in the late afternoon, later than the dome and the tower, and it shuts to visitors on Sunday mornings and religious holidays for mass. Dome slots start at opening and the first two or three of the day are the coolest and least congested; in July and August the space between the shells is genuinely hot by midday. The bell tower rarely queues before ten.

Piazza del Duomo itself is busiest from late morning to early evening, and the best photographs of the facade come at first light, when the marble is pink and the square is nearly empty. Dress code is enforced at the cathedral door and applies to the whole complex: shoulders covered, nothing above the knee, hats off. Large backpacks are refused, and there is no cloakroom, so leave them at your hotel. The combined pass is valid for three days from first use, which is the sensible way to spread the four climbs rather than doing them all at once.