Blink once if you're alive
Blink once if you're alive
Blink once if you're alive
Blink once if you're alive
A few twists and turns above Porta San Nicolo
This affable piazza has a carnival atmosphere at sunset
and is the most popular vantage point for views over the city.
I'm talking about piazza Michelangelo, but what's that church up on the hill?
A few twists and turns above Porta San Nicolo
A few twists and turns above Porta San Nicolo
A few twists and turns above Porta San Nicolo
Miniatta was an early Christian maider who, after his beheading in central Florence,
walked up to this hillside spot with his severed head tucked under his arm.
It was easy to see why he chose this as a final resting place.
The views across Florence were spectacular.
So is the church itself.
It began in the early 11th century.
It's a marvel of Tuscan Ramanistic with geometric marble facade,
Byzantine style mosaics, floors paved in beautiful patterns,
and duplex style choir raised above an even older and more atmospheric crypt.
The church also has frescoes by Agnolo Gatti,
a terracotta sculpture by Luca della Rabia,
and a freestanding chapel by Meccaloso.
Brunowski's red-tiled dazzler redone represents two feet of genius.
First, just the fact that he was even able to build it at all.
No one has tried such a feat since Roman times.
Nearly 150 meters high and 42 meters wide,
it remains nearly six centuries after his completion in 1436,
the largest masonry dome in the world.
Then, of course, gives a sheer loveliness of his creation,
with its eight marble ribs, gold-appointed lantern,
and four million bricks that seamlessly float above the city's rooftops.
More pointed than a perfect dome,
it both reaches towards the heavens, yet remains firmly planted
in the heart of the city's worldly affairs.
Dedicated to Santa Maria del Fiore,
the cathedral is the fruit of the dedicated work of many artists
who collaborated in its building for various centuries.
Begun in 1296 by Sienese architect Arnaufo Di Cambio,
the world's fourth largest cathedral took almost 150 years to complete.
Behind the Gothic welter of its white, green, and red marble façade,
actually a 19th-century recreation,
the interior of the city's cathedral surprisingly spartan,
as most of its treasures have been moved to the adjacent
temple of the opera del Diomo.
The 11th-century baptistry is one of Florence's oldest buildings
and most extraordinary.
The three doorways into the octangular Romanesque structure
tell the story of humanity's redemption,
that in the early 1400s helped usher in a new age
that would become known as the Renaissance.
The womb-like interior dazzles with this opulent Byzantine-style mosaics,
including a gruesome image of Satan devouring sinners,
which is said to have inspired Dante's Inferno.
Begun in 1334 by Giotto, Florence's cathedral's soaring bell tower
rises nearly as high as the cathedral's dome.
Its elaborate Gothic façade, including 16 life-size statues,
represents a who's who of 14th-century art.
Feeling hardcore, right after climbing the dome's 463 steps,
we climbed the caponelli's 414, excited or psychotic.
Anyways, we needed to see up close exactly how
the Romanesque achieved its miracle, so we get in line.
Look up for a close-up of Vasari's last judgment that fills the dome's interior.
Its celestial hosts and hellish torments are depicted
in a muscular-style influence by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.
Then look down, and besides a nice case of vertigo,
you get a bird's-eye view of the vast cathedral interior below,
including the begullian geometry of its marble pavements.
Okay.
Come on, let's go.
We're getting closer to the top on this next level.
Okay, let's go.
Okay, I think from history, I think there's two types of domes.
There's one that's like a regular circle dome,
and the outer dome is like an egg shape.
So I think this part here is the inner dome,
and this is the outer dome.
So you can see it's getting a lot wider.
This dome is starting to feel like a circle,
and this one's starting to go straight up.
This set of steps sits between two separate domes,
one side and the other.
This doubling enabled one dome to hold up the other
as construction continued across the vast gulf of open space.
The two domes grow closer and closer as you climb.
See like the stairs?
They're going around the dome as we go up.
We're actually climbing up the dome now.
Right at the top now.
Let's go!
Okay.
Now this is it.
We're going to do that.
You guys are dark, but Ashley's program lightens you up.
You guys have to stand in the sun.
There's this one shining on you.
Oh, got it, DJ.
If we go to the other side of the sun, it's shining.
Disappearing into the hole.
Okay, wait.
Oh, sure.
This is really...
Oh, yeah.
Alright, I'll keep up with this.
Okay.
You're climbing back down the dome.
What's your head?
This is all the materials they used to build stuff.
They used to build the dome.
But there's more inside the museum.
Lots of fun.
People are discovering all kinds of stuff about themselves.
They're discovering your scared of heights.
They're discovering that their scared of small spaces is hilarious.
