Descent From The Duomo Cupola; And More

Back inside, looking up at Vasari's funny people

Looking down to the nave below

Up very close with the great frescoes

Our descent continued through the great church and its
marble carpet

And its rather spare ornamentation: here, an
enormous "war leader" painting, by Ucello,
perhaps 30 feet high, that I know I posted in
2011; the new angle, you see, is that I now
really know who this guy is: Sir John Hawkwood,
English hero in the earlier Hundred Years'
War, later brigand in France and general
of the mercenary armies that fought (and won)
Florence's battles with Siena; he also fought
for the Popes and anybody else with large
enough a purse and good credit; read Barbara
Tuchman; I now also have much clearer notion
of who Ucello was...

Dante explaining to the citizens of Florence that any
resemblance between characters in his poems and actual
persons was purely and entirely coincidental...

Ground floor view of the colossal dome and colossal painting

And now in the crypt, as it were, Santa Reparata, the original
very early Medieval cathedral on the site; along with Roman
mosaics, etc.

Tomb of Brunelleschi, architect of the dome, and many other
things...

Back out on the street, a statue of Brunelleschi
looking up at his dome

Thus

A bit later, in the Duomo Museum, one of
Ghiberti's Baptistry Doors; the competition
Brunelleschi lost...

Up closer

Same cathedral (museum), a century later,
one of Michaelangelo's Pietas