Nothing is allowed to impair the vista as you stand by the western entrance: the floor has no chairs; the great columns rise from it in the gloom as if they, too, were rooted.

The walls, too, are bare, save for a few tablets.
The history of the building is briefly this.

The first cathedral of Florence was the Baptistery, and S.John the Baptist is still the patron saint of the city.

Then in 1182 the cathedral was transferred to S.Reparata, which stood on part of the site of the Duomo, and in 1294 the decision to rebuild S.Reparata magnificently was arrived at, and Arnolfo di Cambio was instructed to draw up plans.

Arnolfo, whom we see not only on a tablet in the left aisle, in relief, with his plan, but also more than life size, seated beside Brunelleschi on the Palazzo de' Canonici on the south side of the cathedral, facing the door, was then sixty-two and an architect of great reputation.