The Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, also called Museo dell’Opera del Duomo (Museum of the Works of the Cathedral in English), is a museum that collects works of art from the sacred complex of the Duomo of Florence, Giotto’s Baptistery and Bell Tower, with a very important nucleus of Gothic and Renaissance statues.
The current museum was founded in 1296 as a building used to house the Opera del Duomo, an ancient secular institution founded by the Florentine Republic that brought together administrators, artists and workers in charge of the construction of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.
When the basilica was completed in 1436, the Opera was maintained with the task of providing for the protection and maintenance of the sacred complex and, since 1891, opened to the public a part of the rooms, transforming them into a museum. The exhibition area was then further enlarged by the works carried out between 1998 and 2000 in view of the Jubilee.
Today the museum exhibits a large number of masterpieces that offer a complete overview of the development of Florentine sculpture from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Moreover, it is said in this place, around 1500, Michelangelo sculpted the famous David, recycling a block of partially used marble from the Opera del Duomo.
Photo: Sailko – Opera propria, CC BY 3.0, bit.ly/39TuJbL