Center of the religious life in Florence (as Piazza della Signoria was the center of political affairs) Piazza del Duomo ia an extraordinary set of polychrome marbles consisting of the Duomo (cathedral), the Campanile (belltower) and Battistero (baptistry), symbols of passage of Florentine Art from Middle Ages to Renaissance, when Florence was at the height of its economic power in Europe.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (St.Mary of the Flower) is one of the largest churches in the world and its name derives form the golden flower that pope Eugenio IV gave as gift to the city during the consecration cerimony. The church replaced the preexisting Romanic church os Santa Reparata, considered not able anymore to represent the power and importance of the city.

The construction lasted more than 150 years, since the first project by sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296, through the following integrations by Giotto, Andrea Pisano and Francesco Talenti, up to the consecration in 1436. The basic style is Gothic, but with a strong characterization by Florentine taste, fond of large volumes, straight lines and geometrical decorations. The current facade in neogothic style was built at the end of XIX century; the original facade by Arnolfo di Cambio, never completed, was destroyed during the XVI century.

The most original and important part of whole complex is the gigantic masonry dome, 91 meters high and 50 meters of base diameter, done by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, father of Italian Renaissance with his studies on the principles of perspective applied to art, who enchanted his contemporaries with the audacious idea to built the cupola without traditional and expensive wood planking.

The interior of the church, differently from the sumptuous exterior, is instead sober and linear, nearly bare, in a purer Gothic style. It contains some important funerary monuments in stone, among which a tomb by Sienese sculptor Tino di Camaino, and in fresco by Andrea del Castagno and Paolo Uccello.

The interior of the dome shows a fresco of Giudizio Universale (the Last Judgement) begun by Vasari and completed by Federico Zuccari. The stained glass windows of the facade was executed following the drawings by Lorenzo Ghiberti.