Piazza Del Duomo

The square holds three separate buildings that read as one because they share a facing: white marble from Carrara, green from Prato and pink from the Maremma, worked into geometric panels.

The cathedral, begun in the thirteenth century and topped by Brunelleschi’s dome. The bell tower beside it, begun by Giotto. And the baptistery opposite the west front, far older than either — a Romanesque octagon that Florentines long believed was a converted Roman temple.

The facade of the cathedral you are looking at is nineteenth-century. The original medieval front was demolished unfinished, and the sculpture from it now sits in the museum behind the building.

Understanding that the ensemble was assembled over six centuries makes the square considerably more interesting than photographing it as a single object.

The single best free thing on the square, and almost nobody does it deliberately.

Make a full circuit of the cathedral at street level. It takes fifteen minutes and the building changes completely as you go.

On the north side is the Porta della Mandorla with its sculpted almond-shaped frame. Along the flanks the marble panelling shifts pattern. At the east end the apses and the base of the dome come into view at close range, and you can see how the drum carries it.

From the rear, in the narrow street behind, you get the dome without the facade — the shot most visitors never take because they never walk round.

The bell tower and baptistery are best seen from the corners of the square rather than head on.

The most important sculpture on the square is on the outside of the baptistery and free to look at.

Three sets of bronze doors. The east doors facing the cathedral are Ghiberti’s, the ones Michelangelo is said to have called the Gates of Paradise — ten gilded panels of Old Testament scenes in extraordinary depth of relief.

What stands on the building are replicas. The originals, restored, are indoors in the museum behind the cathedral, displayed at eye level where you can actually see them.

The north doors are also Ghiberti’s, from the competition that made his name, and the south doors are older.

Stand in front of the east doors for five minutes before deciding whether the museum is worth a ticket. It is.

Worth being clear, because it shapes how you spend the day.

Free: the entire square, all three exteriors, the baptistery doors, the perimeter walk, and the cathedral nave — though the nave has a very long queue and, by Italian standards, a plain interior.

Paid: the dome climb, the bell tower climb, the baptistery interior, the crypt beneath the cathedral, and the Opera del Duomo museum behind it. These are sold as tiered passes rather than individually, and only the top tier includes the dome.

A great many visitors conclude that the exteriors plus the museum is the best value combination, and skip the free nave queue entirely.

If you want the dome, book it the day your Florence dates are fixed. It sells out weeks ahead.

The most underrated building on the square, and it holds the originals of what you have been looking at outside.

The real Gates of Paradise. The statues from the demolished medieval facade, displayed against a full-scale reconstruction of it. Donatello’s gaunt wooden Magdalene. Michelangelo’s late unfinished Pietà. And the models, tools and machinery that explain how Brunelleschi raised the dome without conventional scaffolding.

It is indoors, air conditioned, and far quieter than anything else in the complex.

Do it before the climbs rather than after. Understanding the engineering problem first turns the stairwell inside the dome from a chore into the answer to a question.

It is included on all the passes.

This is one of the most congested public spaces in Italy from mid-morning to early evening.

Early morning is a different square entirely — low sun on the marble, the shops shuttered, a handful of people, and space to photograph the facade whole.

After dark the buildings are floodlit, the crowd has thinned, and the marble takes artificial light beautifully. The square never closes and there is no ticket, so this costs nothing.

Middle of the day in summer is the worst of it: no shade anywhere on the square, glare off white marble, and queues for the free cathedral entry running along the flank of the building.

September and October are the busiest months; January and February the quietest and, for a stone square, considerably more comfortable.

The square is too tight for the buildings, which is the central difficulty.

A standard lens cannot take in the cathedral facade from ground level. Use the wide setting, or step back into the streets opposite and shoot down them.

For the dome, the streets behind the building give a cleaner view than the square does. Via dei Servi, running north-east, frames it at the end of a street.

For the whole ensemble, elevation is the answer: the museum terrace behind the cathedral, the bell tower, or Piazzale Michelangelo across the river.

The baptistery doors reward close detail shots more than wide ones.

Early morning for empty; after dark for drama.

Two towers, and they are different products.

The dome is taller, requires a compulsory timed slot booked well ahead, takes you up between the two shells past the Vasari fresco, and delivers you to the lantern. Four hundred and sixty-three steps, no lift, narrow, and not for anyone with claustrophobia or vertigo.

The bell tower needs no booking, has terraces to rest on partway up, and — decisively — puts the dome itself in the frame at the top, which the dome climb structurally cannot.

If you want photographs of Florence with its dome in them, take the tower. If you want to be inside Brunelleschi’s structure, take the dome.

If you want neither, the museum terrace gives an excellent close view with no steps at all.

The cafés with a view of the cathedral charge for the view, and the food is ordinary.

A coffee standing at the bar costs a fraction of the same coffee sitting at a table, which is standard Italian practice and worth knowing anywhere in the country.

Walk two streets in any direction and both price and quality improve sharply. The area between the square and San Lorenzo has good, unremarkable places where Florentines eat.

Gelato within sight of the Duomo is priced accordingly; the better gelaterie are a few minutes away and are worth the walk.

There is nowhere to sit on the square itself apart from the baptistery steps, which fill early.

There is no shade anywhere on the square. In summer that matters more than it sounds, particularly in the free-entry queue along the cathedral flank.

Backpacks are not permitted on the climbs or in the cathedral, and the bag deposit is behind the museum rather than at the entrances you will be queuing at — sort it before you join a line.

Dress code applies in the cathedral and baptistery: shoulders and knees covered, hats off. Enforcement is inconsistent, which is precisely why it catches people out.

The square is worked by ticket sellers and the usual street approaches; nobody legitimate sells complex passes on the pavement.

Public toilets are scarce; the museum has them.

The square is flat and paved, which makes moving around the outside straightforward, though the surrounding streets are cobbled.

The cathedral nave is step-free once inside. The baptistery and the crypt involve steps.

Neither climb is accessible in any form — both are stairs only with no lift and no partial option.

The museum behind the cathedral is fully accessible with lifts, and its terrace gives a close view of the dome without a single step, which makes it the answer for anyone who cannot climb.

Reduced or free admission generally applies to visitors with disabilities and a companion.

Crowd density in the middle of the day is a genuine barrier in its own right.

Thirty minutes to walk the perimeter and look at the doors, which is free and is the version many visitors are happiest with.

An hour and a half for the museum.

An hour for a climb including the queue.

Half a day if you are doing the museum, a climb and the cathedral nave.

A full day if you attempt everything on a pass, which is more than most people want.

The passes are valid across several days with one entry to each monument, so splitting the complex over two mornings is allowed and is considerably more pleasant than forcing it into one.

Three things recur in what people write afterwards.

That the exterior is the best part and it is free — the marble, the doors and the perimeter walk are what they remember, and they need no ticket at all.

That the interior of the cathedral is plain, and an hour queuing for it is an hour not spent on the museum or a climb.

And that the museum behind the building, holding the originals of everything on the facades, is the thing they nearly skipped and were most glad they did not.

The square is one of the great architectural ensembles in Europe. Walking round it slowly at seven in the morning, before any of it opens, is the single best hour available in Florence and costs nothing.