The Nativity of Mary 2026: Free Admission to the Cathedral Museum on September 8

September 8: THE NATIVITY OF MARY

Italians up and down the peninsula celebrate September 8 as the Virgin Mary’s birthday.  In Florence, since the Cathedral (or: Duomo) is named “St. Mary of the Flower” (the Florence coat-of-arms depicts a stylized iris as the city symbol), the adjacent Cathedral Museum (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo) will be open free of charge to the public from 8:30 to midnight (last entrance at 11:30 pm).

The Cathedral museum hosts artworks, including sculptures, originally found on the facade or interior of the Cathedral, in addition to models.

The visitor is greeted a four-story life size replica of the original Cathedral façade as it looked before it was torn down in 1586-87.  Forty of the marble statues from the 14th and 15th centuries sculpted for the façade by Arnolfo di Cambio, Donatello, Nanni di Banco and others have been placed in their original positions.

On the opposite side of the room, visitors come face to face with Ghiberti’s monumental bronze doors from the Baptistery:  the Gates of Paradise and the North Doors. After 400 years, according to Duomo Museum director Timothy Verdon, the Gates of Paradise face the Cathedral facade as it looked in Ghiberti’s day, re-establishing a visual and iconographic harmony that was lost for over four centuries.

Virtually a secret is the fact that the zone between the Cathedral and Baptistery was known as “paradise,” for which its most famous doors are named.  The Cathedral square was also an open-air museum for Roman sarcophagi, serving as tutorials in visual classicism and realism to the pioneers of the Renaissance style.  These artists were creating works of art “più bello non si può” (“as beautiful as can be”), as stipulated by their contracts for art works to decorate the Duomo, Bell Tower and Baptistery to rival the majestic Cathedral squares in Pisa and Siena.

Ghiberti’s North Doors, the first set of doors he designed for the Baptistery, have been restored, and they are a revelation. The removal of centuries of dirt and incrustation has revealed another secret; original gold, along with incredible naturalistic details visible for the first time in decades, such the tiny insects and animals which populate the decorative frames surrounding the scenes. There is also a bronze self-portrait of the young Ghiberti.

The museum itinerary continues on the ground floor where its works of greatest spiritual significance are located.  Donatello carved his Penitent Mary Magdalene (1453-55) to show a woman devoured by years of fasting and material deprivation, her wasted figure seemingly barely able to stand.  But her rapt gaze and outstretched hands emanate a spiritual strength sure to enthral the viewer.

The Magdalene also became a symbol of the resilience of the Florentine people themselves during times of hardship, especially so during the devastation flood in Florence in 1966, when photographs of the statue covered in mud, a stricken survivor, acted as a magnet drawing people from around the globe to come to the city’s aid.

Michelangelo’s Florence Pietà, carved over a period of eight years from 1547 to 1555, was originally intended by the sculptor for his own funerary monument in Santa Croce.  But the aging sculptor, during a period of intense depression following the death of his friend and muse, poet Vittoria Colonna, became dissatisfied with the piece.

According to Vasari and other contemporary biographers, when a vein in the marble caused a crack to open in the Christ figure, in a fit of rage Michelangelo tried to smash the statue to pieces with a hammer. He succeeded in completely destroying Christ’s left leg; his pupil, Tiberio Calcagni, eventually completed the poetic work.

Donatello’s and Luca Della Robbia’s cantorie, the choir galleries originally located over the Cathedral’s sacristy doors are on display upstairs. Replicas of the bronze spiritelli or little spirits sculpted by Donatello now mischievously perch atop the cast of Luca Della Robbia’s Cantoria.  A never-before-seen treasure is a gilded and painted cross, attributed to Paolo Uccello, recently rediscovered in the sacristy of the Duomo. This is exhibited close to vestments with embroidered panels designed by Antonio Del Pollaiuolo.  (elizabeth wicks/additional reporting by rosanna cirigliano)