In piazza San Giovanni, in front of the Baptistery, hundreds of people every day photograph the gilded panels of the Gates of Paradise from close up, the door that tradition says Michelangelo found worthy of paradise. Those panels, though, are copies.
Ghiberti’s originals are two hundred metres away, inside a sealed case in the Opera del Duomo Museum, and they are seen on the same ticket that most people already have in their pocket without knowing it. This article follows the walk between the two buildings; the reckoning of which pass to buy is in the article on the Duomo and Brunelleschi’s dome.
One opening time to keep in mind: the Opera Museum is closed on the first Tuesday of every month for maintenance, a closure no other place in Florence has, so anyone arriving at the start of the month runs into it unprepared.
How could a competition for a bronze door, in 1401, decide who would build the cathedral dome?
What you are actually looking at when you look at the Baptistery from outside
The photograph above is taken from high up, and it is the only way to see the real shape: the Baptistery is an octagon under a white pyramidal roof. From the ground you cannot tell, and almost everyone leaves believing they have seen a dome.
Why eight sides? Because in Christian architecture eight is the number of baptism: the seventh day closes creation, the eighth opens the new life. Baptismal buildings are octagons across half of Europe, and this is among the oldest and the most imitated.
The other thing you notice only by looking at it calmly is the facing in bands of white and green marble, geometric, with panels and blind arches. This is Florentine Romanesque, and it is the same grammar you find at San Miniato al Monte, on the hill opposite. For centuries Florentines believed the Baptistery was a Roman temple adapted for Christian use: they were wrong, but that misunderstanding fed the whole Renaissance, because their architects thought they were copying antiquity while they were copying the Middle Ages.
The three doors, and the competition that decided who would build the dome
There are three doors, not one, and between them they recount a century.
The south door is the oldest, by Andrea Pisano, and belongs to the fourteenth century. The other two are by Lorenzo Ghiberti and belong to the fifteenth.
In 1401 a competition was announced for the second door, and the two finalists were Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi. Ghiberti won. Brunelleschi lost, and tradition has it that he left Florence for Rome to study the ancient ruins: from that journey came back the man who would build the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. The two competition panels still exist and can be seen at the Bargello Museum, side by side: it is one of the most direct comparisons Italian art allows.
The third door, the one facing the cathedral, is the Gates of Paradise, and the name, by tradition, was given by Michelangelo. Ten gilded square panels with stories from the Old Testament, and inside each of them a depth that sculpture had never shown before.
Where the originals ended up, and why they were taken down
Why did a door of gilded bronze end up inside a glass box? Because the air of a city is no longer the air it was cast for.
The original panels were removed and replaced by copies, and today they are in the Opera del Duomo Museum, in a sealed, climate-controlled case, reassembled in their frame like a real door. The restoration took decades and was among the longest ever carried out on an Italian work.
The comparison is simple: outside you see the copies, from below and in the crowd; here you see the originals level, lit, at eye height. The reflection on the glass is part of the experience and cannot be removed, but it is a low price.
In the same room and those near it the museum keeps other things that stood on the buildings and were brought inside: the statues from the cathedral’s medieval façade, Donatello’s wooden Magdalene, Michelangelo’s Bandini Pietà, the choir lofts. The Opera Museum, in short, is where what was taken off the square ended up.
The dome mosaics, which are best seen standing still
Inside the Baptistery, look up. The dome is entirely covered with gold-ground mosaics of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the scene that dominates is a Last Judgement with an enormous Christ at the centre.
The right way to look at them is not to hunt for details but to read the concentric bands: they run around the octagon and tell, one ring at a time, Genesis, the stories of Joseph, those of Christ and those of the Baptist. It is an illustrated book for an audience that could not read, and the circular structure serves that purpose.
Stop for a few minutes instead of walking round: you see far more standing still, because the eye adjusts to the gold and begins to pick out the figures.
Practical information
Details checked on 10 September 2026 by cross-referencing two independent sources, because the site of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore refuses automated requests. Prices and opening times change: check again before you travel, and telephone if in doubt.
Tickets. The Baptistery has no ticket of its own: you get in only with one of the complex’s three passes. The Brunelleschi Pass costs 30 euros and covers everything, dome included; the Giotto Pass costs 20 euros and covers everything except the dome; the Ghiberti Pass costs 15 euros and covers the Baptistery, the Opera Museum and Santa Reparata. All three are valid for three days, with one entry per monument. Children between 7 and 14 pay 12, 7 and 5 euros, and under 6s go in free.
Opening times. The Baptistery opens 8:30-19:30. The Opera Museum opens 8:30-19:00 and is closed on the first Tuesday of every month.
Warning: sources disagree on these times. A third source gives the Opera Museum as open 9:00-19:00 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and 9:00-21:00 on the other days. Two independent sources out of three agree on 8:30-19:00, which is what I give here, but if you are planning the day around an evening visit it is worth checking.
Getting there. The Baptistery stands on piazza San Giovanni and the Opera Museum at piazza del Duomo 9, behind the apse of the cathedral: two hundred metres separate them.
How long it takes. Forty minutes for the Baptistery. An hour and a half for the Opera Museum, which is larger than it looks.
The rest of Florence
The pass you buy here also opens the dome and the campanile, and the reckoning of which one suits you is in Florence cathedral and Brunelleschi’s dome. The full two-day route is in what to see in Florence in 2 days.
If the competition of 1401 has caught your interest, the two panels by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi face each other at the Bargello Museum. Romanesque in white and green bands is seen at its best at San Miniato al Monte, and the church the Medici built as their family chapel is San Lorenzo.
Three hundred metres away, on the other side of via dei Calzaiuoli, is Palazzo Vecchio.
Photo credits: view from above by Photo2023 (CC BY 4.0); Gates of Paradise in place by Marek Śliwecki (CC BY-SA 4.0); original doors by Sailko (CC BY-SA 3.0); dome mosaics by Luca Aless (CC BY-SA 4.0). All from Wikimedia Commons.
