Florence Cathedral

Florence is a city in Italy.

In the old center of the city is a huge church called a cathedral. On top sits a giant dome with red tiles. It rises high above the rooftops.

Florence Cathedral stands in the historic center of Florence, a city in Italy. Its full name is the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. It was begun in 1296 by its master builder, the architect Arnolfo di Cambio, who laid the foundations.

Its most famous part is the dome. Designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, it was built between 1420 and 1436 from more than four million bricks. Visit Tuscany calls it the largest dome in the world at the time and still the largest ever built of masonry, which means stone or brick.

The cathedral is one of the monuments of the Historic Centre of Florence, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982; UNESCO names 'the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Baptistery and the Campanile of Giotto' first in its list of the city's universally renowned works of art. Universalis records that Arnolfo di Cambio returned to Florence in 1296 as the cathedral's capomaestro, master of works, and laid the foundations of the new building.

Museo Galileo dates the dome from the summer of 1420 to 1436, except for the lantern, and calls it the biggest dome ever built without centring, a wooden or iron structure to support the masonry while it is built. Visit Tuscany gives its diameter as 45.5 m.

On top of the dome is a small tower called the lantern.

Next to the cathedral stands a tall bell tower. Inside, the dome is decorated with paintings.

The dome starts about 54 meters above the ground. On top sits the lantern, a small tower that, with its copper ball, is a little over 22 meters tall. Brunelleschi designed it, and it was built after his death in 1446.

Beside the cathedral stands the bell tower, which UNESCO calls the Campanile of Giotto. Inside, the dome is decorated with frescoes painted between 1572 and 1579 by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari.

Museo Galileo gives the dome's springing point about 54 m above the ground, a distance of around 35 m between opposite edges of the octagonal base, and a lantern a little over 22 m tall including the copper sphere. Visit Tuscany says the lantern, designed by Brunelleschi, was built after his death in 1446, and that the interior frescoes were painted by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari between 1572 and 1579.

The dome also served science. Around 1475 Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli made a gnomon in it, the highest built until then, which marked the moment the Sun passed the summer solstice; in the mid-18th century Leonardo Ximenes restored it and used it for astronomical and physical observations.

In the photo, the cathedral is lit up.

The big red dome rises above the dark rooftops. Hills stand behind it.

This photo was taken from Michelangelo hill, across the city. The cathedral is lit up: you can see the great dome with its white ribs and lantern, the long side of the church with its patterned walls, and the tall bell tower on the left. Dark hills rise behind, and the rooftops of Florence fill the front.

UNESCO says the historic center around it, 505 hectares inside the line of the old 14th-century walls, shows more than six centuries of art and building.

Taken from Michelangelo hill (the photo's title), the view shows the illuminated cathedral: the octagonal dome with its white ribs and round windows in the drum below, the lantern, the smaller half-domes clustered below the dome, the long flank of the nave and Giotto's campanile, with other towers of the city in front and hills beyond.

UNESCO describes the whole historic center, 505 hectares inside the line of the 14th-century walls, as the fruit of continuous creation over more than six centuries.