Ward Family Vacations
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Ward Family Vacations |
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Italy 2001 Santa Maria del Fiore |
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It was still raining when we left the Gallery of
Fine Arts, but there were plenty of umbrella vendors selling them for 5,000 Lire
or $2.50 American money which wasn't bad. We walked to the Duomo Santa Maria del
Fiore. The cathedral was begun in 1296 by sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio and
local artists continued to work on it for the next century and a half. The
painter Giotto designed the bell tower (campanile) in 1334. The massive
octagonal cupola that dominates the skyline in Florence was designed by Filippo
Brunelleschi, master architect and sculptor.
The baptistry has a series of bronze doors, the third pair of these doors commissioned in 1401 to a young artist, Lorenzo Ghiberti who was 21 years. Ghiberti began in 1404 and completed the doors in 1424, taking him 21 years to complete the beautiful bronze doors. These gilded bronze doors consist of twenty-eight panels. Twenty panels depict biblical scenes from the New Testament. The eight lower panels show the four evangelists and the Church Fathers Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint Gregory and Saint Augustine. The panels are surrounded by a framework of foliage in the door case and gilded busts of prophets and sibyls at the joining of the panels. The doors were so beautiful, stated Michelangelo, that he said they were the "Gates of Paradise".
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