For the first time, a joint ticket to see the treasures of the Florence and Pistoia Cathedrals

Thanks to an agreement signed between the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Cathedral Church of San Zeno, for the first time, it will be possible to visit the treasures of the two monumental complexes of Florence and Pistoia with a joint ticket from Aug. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023. The visit The Treasure of San Jacopo is proposed as an itinerary that unites the two Tuscan cities, which are close in geographical location, history, culture and Christian devotion.

Symbolic of this affinity and the focus of the project are two masterpieces of medieval sacred goldsmithing: the Silver Altar of San Giovanni in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence and the Silver Altar of San Jacopo in the Cathedral of San Zeno in Pistoia. To these are added the works of the great artists and architects working in the two cities from the Middle Ages to the height of the Renaissance, including Filippo Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Giorgio Vasari, Verrocchio, the Della Robbia and Buglioni families, Michelozzo, Coppo di Marcovaldo and others.

The treasure room of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence holds one of the masterpieces of Tuscan goldsmithing at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Silver Altar of St. John, commissioned by the Arte di Calimala as a dossal for the high altar of the Florence Baptistery: it took more than a hundred years of work, 200 kilos of silver and 1050 enameled plaques to complete. Its archetype is found in the imposing and exquisite silver Altar of San Jacopo in the Cathedral of San Zeno in Pistoia, made in honor of the city’s patron saint to hold one of his precious relics. Two masterpieces of medieval sacred art: the older one of San Jacopo would be an inspiration to his Florentine successor. The two altars resemble each other in material and technique (embossed silver with gilding, parts in the round, and enamels), in invention (stories in bas-relief within panels that are arranged around niches with figures in the round of the “titular”) and for being both the result of centuries of work (1287-1456 the extremes of the Pistoia altar; 1366 -1483 of the Florentine one), by the greatest Tuscan goldsmiths and artists of the time.

And it is the Silver Altar of San Jacopo that links the two cathedrals in the name of Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi, who began his career as a goldsmith and sculptor, took part in the competition to make the North Door of the Baptistery of Florence, and at the same time he made for the Silver Altar of Pistoia the panel with the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah on the left side of the dossal: figures that, despite their small size, because of their plastic freedom and natural and psychological truth and the spiritual intensity of their gestures and expressions, constitute one of the most precious testimonies to the beginning of the Renaissance. One finds Brunelleschi in Florence grappling with the construction of the Dome of Florence Cathedral, which he was to realize beginning in 1420. The relationship between Brunelleschi’s Dome and that of the Basilica dell’Umiltà in Pistoia - begun by Giuliano da Sangallo, continued by Ventura Vitoni and finished by Giorgio Vasari - is evident in a path that spans from 1420 to 1568 the work of the most excellent architects of the time. The two silver altars have in common another artist: Leonardo di Ser Giovanni, who in 1361-1364 worked on the left side of the Jacopo altar on the stories of the Old and New Testaments, and later, until 1371, on the opposite side on the stories of the life of St. Jacopo, and then, in 1366, he would be commissioned together with Betto di Geri to execute some scenes from the life of the Baptist on the front side of the Silver Altar of the Florentine Baptistery. He is especially responsible for the two similar panels executed for the two altars, San Jacopo di fronte a Erode (Pistoia) and San Giovanni di fronte a Erode (Florence).

The dialogue between the two Cathedrals continued thanks to the works of other great artists and architects of the Middle Ages and Renaissance including Coppo di Marcovaldo with the Crucifix in Pistoia Cathedral and the mosaics of the Florence Baptistery; Lorenzo Ghiberti who, while working on the monumental North Door of the Florence Baptistery (1403 - 1424), created with his workshop in 1407 the Reliquary of St. James in Pistoia Cathedral. And then Verrocchio, to whom we owe the famous panel with the Beheading of the Baptist for the Silver Altar of San Giovanni (on which a young Leonardo, trained in Verrocchio’s workshop, is also speculated to have worked) and the Gilded Ball (1468 - 1471) on Brunelleschi’s Dome, while in Pistoia, starting in 1476, he made the cenotaph of Cardinal Niccolò Forteguerri on the wall of the left aisle of the Cathedral of San Zeno. And then the Della Robbia and Buglioni glazed terracottas: in the Loggiato dell’Ospedale del Ceppo (Buglioni) and in the portico of the Duomo (Andrea della Robbia) in Pistoia; in Santa Maria del Fiore (Luca della Robbia) and in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo (Andrea della Robbia and Benedetto Buglioni). Michelozzo working on the body of the Ospedale del Ceppo in Pistoia and on the Lantern of the Florence Cathedral, and above all, on St. John in the Silver Altar, which echoes the St. Jacopo of the altar of the same name in Pistoia.

The joint ticket The Two Treasures (full price 18 euros, concessions 10) allows a visit in Florence to the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo-where the Silver Altar of St. John, the North Door of Lorenzo’s Baptistery and many other masterpieces from the early Renaissance are kept-the Baptistery and the Crypt of Santa Reparata in the Cathedral. In Pistoia, the Cathedral of San Zeno with a tour called The Treasure of San Jacopo that includes an audio-guided tour of the main works of art and the Silver Altar of San Jacopo as well as the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Corte and the Bell Tower.

Pictured, Silver Altar, detail of San Giovanni decollato by Andrea del Verrocchio, 1366- 1483, Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. Photo Antonio Quattrone.

For the first time, a joint ticket to see the treasures of the Florence and Pistoia Cathedrals

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