Florence Cathedral: The Best Tickets & Our Insider Tips

Florence Cathedral Admission: All Your Options

Admission to the Cathedral itself is free, though there is a line — and during the busiest travel seasons in Florence it can get seriously long.

Alternatively, you can join a guided tour and head straight in.

All other parts of the Cathedral are paid attractions, and you’ll need one of the Cathedral passes to access them.

Here are your options for visiting the Florence Cathedral:

If you have one of the Cathedral passes, you can enter directly through a side entrance, skipping the line at the main door.

The side entrance is on the south façade, right next to the bell tower entrance.

The Brunelleschi Pass

The Brunelleschi Pass is the all-inclusive option for the Florence Cathedral complex. Here’s what it covers:

• free admission to all Cathedral attractions
• Dome climb with a reserved time slot
• Fast-track entry to the Cathedral
• Three-day validity

The Brunelleschi Pass is the only pass that gets you up into the dome.

On the official website, the pass costs 30 euros and is non-refundable; the site is available in English or Italian only.

On Get Your Guide, the pass costs 45 euros and is refundable — and the booking process is fully in English.

Get the Pass on Get Your Guide

Get the Pass on the Official Website

The three-day validity starts from the time slot you booked for your dome visit.

Heads up: Dome time slots sell out really fast. Buy the Brunelleschi Pass at least one to two weeks in advance to lock in a time slot that works for you.

More Passes for the Florence Cathedral

There are also two more affordable passes, but they don’t cover the full Cathedral complex. These passes also include fast-track entry to the Cathedral.

Note that you can only purchase them on the official website, available in English or Italian.

Giotto Pass (20 euros): Cathedral, bell tower, baptistery, excavation site, and museum (dome not included).

Ghiberti Pass (15 euros): Cathedral, baptistery, excavation site, and museum (no dome & no bell tower).

Both passes are valid for three days, so you’ll have plenty of time to see everything at your own pace.

Worth knowing: the entire Cathedral complex is also included in the Florence Digital Pass, alongside the Uffizi, the Galleria dell’Accademia, and a city audio guide app:

Get the Florence Digital Pass

If you want to save money across the top sights in Florence, we’ve put together a detailed guide on the best Florence city passes.

Visiting the Florence Cathedral

The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is, after St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and the Cathedral of Milan, the fourth-largest cathedral in Europe.

When it was completed in the 15th century, it was actually the largest church in Christendom.

Because the Duomo Florence consists of several parts, the whole thing is referred to as the Cathedral complex.

The Florence Cathedral complex has six attractions:

• The nave (free admission)
• The dome
• Giotto’s Bell Tower
• The crypt with the Santa Reparata excavation site
• The Museo dell’Opera del Duomo
• The Baptistery

The nave itself is fairly understated. The dome, on the other hand — entirely painted on the inside — is absolutely breathtaking.

From the nave, a short staircase leads down into the crypt, where you can see the archaeological excavations of the early Christian church of Santa Reparata.

The bell tower, the museum, and the baptistery are separate buildings with their own entrances. The dome is part of the Cathedral, but the climb has its own dedicated entrance.

Climbing the Dome

To climb the dome, you need the Brunelleschi Pass — there is no single dome ticket.

The climb is only possible during the reserved time slot you selected when buying the pass.

The entrance to the dome is on the north side of the Cathedral, at the side door called Porta della Mandorla.

After passing through a metal detector — which can cause brief delays — 463 steps lead you up to the top.

The stairs are steep and narrow, so it’s not ideal if you have claustrophobia or limited stamina. There’s no elevator.

On the way up, you’ll pass a terrace that wraps around the base of the dome in a semicircle, giving you a close-up view of the incredibly detailed frescoes inside the dome.

The paintings depict scenes from heaven and hell — the hell scenes in particular, with bloodthirsty monsters devouring people, are quite striking for a church setting.

Once at the top, you climb through a narrow hatch to the outside, where at over 108 meters above the ground you get a 360-degree panorama over the highlights of Florence.

You get about 20 minutes at the top before being politely directed back down to make way for the next group.

Plan for roughly one hour for the dome climb in total.

Climbing Giotto’s Bell Tower

The bell tower of the Florence Cathedral was named after its architect, Giotto di Bondone.

The Campanile di Giotto stands 85 meters tall.

You can climb this one too: 414 narrow steps lead up to a panoramic terrace with a great view over the Cathedral roof, the dome, and the rest of the city.

There’s no single ticket for the bell tower either — admission is included in both the Brunelleschi Pass and the Giotto Pass.

Our tip: The Giotto Pass costs just 20 euros and includes all monuments in the Cathedral complex except the dome. So if you want to get up high without spending too much, the Campanile is a great alternative — even if it’s a few meters shorter than the dome.

The Crypt with the Santa Reparata Excavation Site

The site where the Florence Cathedral stands today was once home to the early Christian church of Santa Reparata, likely built in the 4th century.

As Florence grew, it was decided in the 13th century that the old church no longer reflected the city’s rising importance — and that a proper cathedral was needed.

You can visit the excavation site in the lower level of the Cathedral. Alongside the church’s foundations, you’ll see a beautiful mosaic floor that’s partially very well preserved.

To reach the excavation site, you first need to enter the Cathedral. With a pass, this is quick and easy via the side door on the south façade.

Access to the excavation site is included in all Cathedral complex passes; there’s no single ticket.

By the way: It was here in the lower level that Brunelleschi’s tomb was rediscovered in the 1970s after being lost for centuries.

For the time, it was highly unusual to bury a mere architect inside a cathedral — Brunelleschi was neither a nobleman nor a clergyman. It speaks volumes about the recognition he earned for his work in Florence.

You can visit the tomb free of charge, as it sits before the ticket checkpoint for the excavation site.

More Highlights Inside the Florence Cathedral

The Rooftop Terraces of the Cathedral

From street level, it’s completely invisible — which is why most visitors have no idea there’s a viewing terrace on the Cathedral’s roof.

It’s a walkway that circles the entire Cathedral roof. Brunelleschi built it to give the dome additional structural stability.

You stroll here at a height of 30 meters and get a whole new perspective on the dome, the bell tower, and the baptistery.

The terrace visit is limited to a maximum of 25 people and is only available as part of a guided tour. It’s very exclusive — and not cheap: around 50 euros per person. You’ll need to register by email through the Cathedral’s tourism office.

Alternatively, you can book a guided tour of the entire Cathedral on Get Your Guide that includes both the dome and the terraces:

Book the guided Cathedral, dome & terrace tour

The Museo dell’Opera del Duomo

The museum is located just behind the Cathedral.

Spread across more than 6,000 square meters, it houses all the original sculptures, paintings, and objects from the Cathedral, the Baptistery, and the bell tower.

You’ll get a great overview of the history and the centuries-long construction of the Duomo Florence.

Highlights include the Florentine Pietà by Michelangelo and the Mary Magdalene by Donatello, with information panels in both Italian and English throughout.

On the roof of the three-story museum, there’s also a lovely rooftop terrace with a direct view of the Cathedral.

Admission is included in all passes for the Cathedral complex.

You can also buy the Ghiberti Pass on-site for 15 euros, which covers the museum plus the Baptistery.

The Baptistery

The Baptistery is the baptismal church of the Cathedral.

Like the Cathedral of Pisa, it stands separately across the piazza and actually predates the Cathedral by many centuries.

The real showstoppers are the North Gate and the Gates of Paradise — both feature gilded relief scenes from the Bible.

You can spot the enormous bronze and gold-colored doors by the crowds that always gather around them. Worth knowing: all the gates outside are copies — the originals are in the Cathedral’s museum.

Going inside the Baptistery is absolutely worth it: the octagonal ceiling is covered with thousands of mosaic tiles, and it took around 50 years to complete the 26-meter-wide mosaic.

The Baptistery is included in every Cathedral complex pass. If you only want to visit the Baptistery, you can pick up the Ghiberti Pass for 15 euros, which also covers the museum.

Fun Facts About the Florence Cathedral

Several legends and anecdotes surround the people who built the Cathedral. Here are some of the most entertaining stories told in Florence:

The Legend of the Bischeri Family

One legend claims that the Tuscan word bischero, meaning “fool,” comes from the surname of a family that owned several houses on the site where the Cathedral now stands.

When the decision was made to build the Cathedral and the family was offered money for their houses, they refused.

Shortly afterward, a fire broke out and the Bischeri family’s houses were destroyed, drastically reducing their value. Their surname became a synonym for stupidity in Florence — and the expression is still used today.

The Cricket Cage

If you look at the Cathedral from a distance, you’ll notice that one section below the dome was never completed.

This is a white marble loggia that was meant to further adorn the dome.

Michelangelo — apparently quite a difficult personality — dismissively called the loggia a “cage for crickets.” The offended architect Baccio d’Agnolo abandoned the project on the spot, and it was never finished.

When Lightning Struck

Behind the Cathedral, just a few meters from the museum entrance, there’s a white circular marker on the ground.

In 1601, during a storm, lightning struck the gilded ball at the very top of the lantern on the Cathedral dome.

The ball broke off and, weighing two tons, crashed to the ground exactly where the marker is today. You can still see the cracks it left behind.

How the Stone Bull's Head Ended Up on the Cathedral

On the north façade of the Cathedral, above the entrance to the dome, you can see a statue of a bull’s head.

Because it’s the only animal sculpture on the entire Cathedral, there are two theories about why it’s there. The first is that it’s a tribute to the working animals used during construction.

The second is that a construction foreman reportedly had an affair with a baker’s wife, whose bakery was directly across the street.

When the affair was discovered and ended, the foreman placed the bull’s head at this exact spot so that the horns point directly toward the bakery — in the spirit of “putting horns on the baker,” as the old saying goes.

Frequently Asked Questions About Visiting the Florence Cathedral