ADMIRING THE ITALIAN FLORENCE DUOMO UP CLOSE

So there you stand in front of this giant work of art that has stood the test of time through centuries. The cathedral named in honour of Santa Maria del Fiore, is a huge Gothic structure built on the site of the 7th century church of Santa Reparata. It took two centuries to finish and stands magnificently on its square dwarfing humans into ants. Florence's cathedral is the 4th largest in the world, after St. Peter's in Rome, St. Paul's in London and the Duomo in Milan.  Duomo just means cathedral in Italian. Its two domes at first glance and from afar, on top of the Michaelangelo hill tower out impressively dominating the view, but its beauty expands the closer you get. Let's zoom in a bit and have a look at the design, colours, structure and sculpture.

 

 

The main colours are jade green, and pastel shades of pink and lime together with a creamy white. Light reflections differ the view as you walk around it which is like taking a mini-mountain detour, as you peer above trying to peek at more of the detail. Around the sides are rectangles of dark green around pale lime, in horizontal and vertical matching rows with the design changing slightly in the upper part of the facade. The windows are divided by an outlay or protruding section like column as above in this picture with small miniature type window shapes. The two sections are divided by two dark green, one pink and one white border lines, running horizontally to the vertical rectangles. The higher the facade rises, the pink becomes more prominent and visible where eventually at the top, the window divider columns edge it off in an  ornamental border of colour mix with dark green decorative shapes on white. It takes a while to walk around through the crowds, taking photographs from different angles and on the sidewalk cobble stoned terrace cafes, there is delicately designed wrought iron furniture blending in with the overall style of the Duomo.

 

 

As you reach the front facade there is an explosion of sculpture, and mixture of various details on different winding columns and protruding bits, each with a unique style of elaboration. This part was worked on until the end of the nineteenth century. Finally, you get to the main front door which is  about 3.5 metres high, bottle green and closed. Above horizontally across are a row of different statues, each posed in their individual window shaped case. My camera does not have a wide lens for panorama shots so there are more than just the ones in this picture.

Above the main archway, is Mary holding Jesus. They are enshrined in a galaxy dome above her head with intricately decorated coiled columns and vertical side panels. They are long and each boasts detailed ornamentation where even a small section of 30x30 cm can keep you fixated on the care and artistic flow of every sculptured curve and curl.  Everything is in perfect harmony and balance and it is genuinely a spiritual experience to gaze at this wonder ,knowing how many have made journeys just to view this goddess like human built structure which is so appealing to our aesthetic senses. All for the belief of something bigger than ourselves, a cultural intelligent creativity which helped the growth of its religion by releasing the power of expressing inner human spirit onto every detail they engraved onto this structure. Such beauty is often only things we might dream of in our sleep, where perfect worlds are unhindered by reality.

 

 

Above the door archway is a triangle with inlays of embedded people in various scenarios, divided by dark green framing. In the rectangle around the triangle, there is more ornamentation,  in delicate pink and white. Further above (your neck will be straining by now), is a massive stained glass window, with approximately 9 different circle layers or inlays. Each with an individual pattern which all blend harmoniously together, encased in another rectangle with a figures in each corner and a white cross on a pinkish shield in the middle section. I'm not sure which parts are pure marble, or poly-chrome marble slates, but I do know that the surrounding province in Tuscany mine the mountains for the stone, so there is plenty in the vicinity.

If you're like me, you avoid the half a kilometre queue where the line consists of groups, four astride,  all patiently waiting an hour or two to enter this giant cathedral. I instead, tried to take as many photos as possible, zooming in so I could later take a closer look to what the naked eye cannot reach. The cathedral was begun at the end of the 13th century by Arnolfo di Cambio, and the dome,  added in the 15th century on a design of Filippo Brunelleschi. A statue of each of these gentleman is to the right of the cathedral where they can look onto their work forever. The arch above the door is all in white (the sun changes the colour taking away detail so I darkened the picture to view the intricacies.) Below the inlays is a religious painting and on either side of the doors are another two full length human height statues, as in the picture of the door, neatly sealed off above the ground, with two broad bottle green horizontal lines to finish the towering coiled vertical mini pillars.  

The Baptistry is opposite and hosts these two doors below. They are also approximately 3.5 metres in height and also designed and decorated down to every centimetre. It is divided into 12 pictures. The picture below shows only four of them and the next just one, although I'm not quite sure what it is of, I presume it to be the Crucifixion. These pictures are framed outside the squares with figures all around on the darker bordering of the gold inlays.  A picture of just one of these figures is below so you can imagine the size of it. 

 

 

   

Florence is a lovely city, ancient and artistic and although the smaller Italian cities are sometimes prettier, a visit to Florence is a must, just to splendid historical Renaissance Cathedral.  Just understanding how long it took to build and realising how steeped in culture and history it is, is a pilgrimage worth, for how much love, work, dedication and artistic flair it must have taken to create.