Yes, we’ve seen the tower. And it leans. Quite a bit.
So what was next?
Luckily for us, alongside the Tower was a magnificent cathedral and a separate circular Baptistery, sheathed in marble and full of the most exquisite Renaissance art and craft.
One of the features of the Baptistery is a two-dome construction which gives excellent accoustics, allowing a sung note to continue on for up to 12 seconds after the singer has stopped. We did hear a demonstration of this – a singer comes in every 30 minutes – but it didn’t quite reach our expectations. Maybe we were standing in the wrong place.
But really the main features of both baptistery and cathedral are the art works and carvings which have been done with such skill all those hundreds of years ago. For instance, look at this next photo. One slip of the chisel and you’d have to start again. Stunning work.
