Cupola del Brunelleschi

Climbing the duomo was an amazing, but a bit scary, experience! The climb was long, narrow, and at times the stairs were in such a tight circle that it was dizzying. The views at the top, both inside and outside the dome, made it 1000% worth it! The view in every direction is just incredible from the top. It was also very cool to see the artwork on the inside up close. There are a lot of similar painted domes in churches around here but I’ve never been able to get so close. I didn’t realize how scary the art was until we were close to it… pretty dark depiction of hell with people-eating demons. It was interesting to see how huge each of the characters are up close, and also how distorted they seem from that angle. It is unreal that artists used to be all the way up there painting and were able to figure out how to alter their art so it would appear normal from hundreds of feet below despite being on a curved surface.Read more