Description
Giotto's Bell Tower is the tower of Florence's Duomo, in Piazza del Duomo: 85 meters clad in white, green and red marble, aligned with the cathedral's facade. You can climb all the way to the top, for one of the finest views of the city and of Brunelleschi's dome.
The cladding is its signature: slabs of white marble from Campiglia and Pietrasanta, green serpentine from Prato and red marble from Siena and Monsummano, laid out like a drawing. As you go up, the windows grow larger and larger, up to the huge triple-light windows of the belfry.
At the bottom runs a cycle of carved panels, hexagons and lozenges, designed by Giotto and carried out by Andrea Pisano and his workshop. They tell of creation and human labor: farming, weaving, medicine, navigation, music, even the invention of wine.
Higher up, in the niches, stood sixteen statues of prophets and sibyls, among them those by Donatello. Outside there are copies: the originals of the panels and statues are in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, a few steps away.
Whoever climbs to the top faces 413 steps, cut into the thickness of the walls and then inside the big corner pillars. The reward is the panoramic terrace at 85 meters, face to face with the dome and with all of Florence around you.
Along the climb you pass the belfry, where the bells are kept, twelve in all, old and modern.
Giotto was a painter, not an architect. Yet in 1334 Florence put him in charge of the Duomo's building site, and he devoted himself almost only to the bell tower. He had imagined a tower of over a hundred meters, with a spire on top, but the walls at the base were too thin to hold it up.
When he died, in 1337, only the first level was finished. A fourteenth-century legend says Giotto died of grief for having given the tower "too little stump to stand on." Andrea Pisano fixed it by thickening the walls from the inside.
After the Black Death, in 1359, Francesco Talenti completed the tower with the big windows and, in place of the spire, a terrace with a balustrade. It is the one you reach by climbing the stairs.
Don't miss
• The panels of the base.
• The panoramic terrace.
• The belfry.
• Donatello's prophets, at the Museo dell'Opera.
Did you know?
• A man from Verona who said Florence could not afford such luxury spent two months in prison. Then they showed him the city's treasury.
• Francesco Talenti, who finished the tower, married Giotto's daughter.
• The Apostolica, the largest of the old bells, cast in 1405, rests on the floor of the belfry.
The cladding is its signature: slabs of white marble from Campiglia and Pietrasanta, green serpentine from Prato and red marble from Siena and Monsummano, laid out like a drawing. As you go up, the windows grow larger and larger, up to the huge triple-light windows of the belfry.
At the bottom runs a cycle of carved panels, hexagons and lozenges, designed by Giotto and carried out by Andrea Pisano and his workshop. They tell of creation and human labor: farming, weaving, medicine, navigation, music, even the invention of wine.
Higher up, in the niches, stood sixteen statues of prophets and sibyls, among them those by Donatello. Outside there are copies: the originals of the panels and statues are in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, a few steps away.
Whoever climbs to the top faces 413 steps, cut into the thickness of the walls and then inside the big corner pillars. The reward is the panoramic terrace at 85 meters, face to face with the dome and with all of Florence around you.
Along the climb you pass the belfry, where the bells are kept, twelve in all, old and modern.
Giotto was a painter, not an architect. Yet in 1334 Florence put him in charge of the Duomo's building site, and he devoted himself almost only to the bell tower. He had imagined a tower of over a hundred meters, with a spire on top, but the walls at the base were too thin to hold it up.
When he died, in 1337, only the first level was finished. A fourteenth-century legend says Giotto died of grief for having given the tower "too little stump to stand on." Andrea Pisano fixed it by thickening the walls from the inside.
After the Black Death, in 1359, Francesco Talenti completed the tower with the big windows and, in place of the spire, a terrace with a balustrade. It is the one you reach by climbing the stairs.
Don't miss
• The panels of the base.
• The panoramic terrace.
• The belfry.
• Donatello's prophets, at the Museo dell'Opera.
Did you know?
• A man from Verona who said Florence could not afford such luxury spent two months in prison. Then they showed him the city's treasury.
• Francesco Talenti, who finished the tower, married Giotto's daughter.
• The Apostolica, the largest of the old bells, cast in 1405, rests on the floor of the belfry.