🇮🇹Florence Duomo Guide: Which Pass to Buy and How to Climb the Dome
The cathedral is free; everything else needs a pass. Three passes compared, timings for all five parts of the complex, and why the bell tower — not the dome — has the better view.
2026-09-05
Santa Maria del Fiore, begun in 1296, is the third-largest church in the world after St Peter's in Rome and St Paul's in London. It is 153 metres long, 90 wide and 90 high. The famous part is Brunelleschi's dome, built between 1420 and 1436 and still the largest masonry dome ever constructed — laid in a herringbone pattern that let it rise without internal scaffolding, which nobody at the time knew how to do.
Next to it stand Giotto's Campanile and the Baptistery.
The five parts, and which pass covers them
The cathedral interior is free. Everything else requires a pass:
| Pass | Price | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Brunelleschi Pass | €30 | Everything, including the dome climb |
| Giotto Pass | €20 | Bell tower + Baptistery + Museum + Crypt |
| Ghiberti Pass | €15 | Baptistery + Museum + Crypt |
All are valid for three days, and the dome climb must be reserved for a specific time slot — this is the part that sells out.
How long each part takes: cathedral interior 30 min; dome 45–50 min; bell tower 45 min; Baptistery 30 min; museum 1 hr; crypt 20 min.
Brunelleschi's Dome climb + Duomo complex ticket
GetYourGuide · from $62
4.5 from 5,622 reviews. The dome climb plus the Baptistery, the Cathedral, the Opera del Duomo Museum and Giotto's Bell Tower - all five sites. The dome is 463 steps with no lift at any point, and slots regularly sell out in high season, so book as soon as your date is fixed
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1. The cathedral interior
Entrance at the west front, free. The scale inside is enormous and surprisingly bare — most of the decoration went to the museum — with Vasari's Last Judgement frescoed on the inside of the dome.
2. The dome climb
463 steps, no lift. The route runs between the inner and outer shells of the dome, which is narrow, warm and not for the claustrophobic. You emerge at the lantern with the best all-round view in Florence.
3. Giotto's Campanile
84.7 metres, designed by Giotto and begun in 1334, on the south side of the facade. 414 steps, no lift, and backpacks must be checked in.
Here's the thing worth knowing: the campanile has the better view, because from up there the dome is in your photograph. From the dome, it isn't. If you can only climb one, and what you want is the picture, climb the tower.
4. The Baptistery
Octagonal, small inside, and hugely significant: Dante and Machiavelli were both baptised here, as were generations of the Medici. The headline is the east door, the Gates of Paradise by Ghiberti, showing scenes from the Pentateuch. What's on the building is a copy — the original is in the museum.
5. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo
East of the cathedral, holding the treasures removed from the complex over the centuries. Two things to find: the original Gates of Paradise panels, and Michelangelo's Pietà — carved when he was in his eighties, intended for his own tomb, and left unfinished after he attacked it in frustration.
How to plan it
Limited time: the free interior plus the dome climb covers the essentials in about two hours.
Half a day: do all five, and take the museum slowly — it's the part most people skip and the one that explains everything else.
Back to the Florence travel guide for the two-day plan, or read the Uffizi guide for Day 2.