Cattedrale di San Romolo

Fiesole’s cathedral has anchored the town since 1028, when Bishop Jacopo il Bavaro moved the see inside the walls from the earlier site near today’s Badia Fiesolana. The Romanesque basilica has a nineteenth-century neo-Gothic façade and preserves relics of its patron, Saint Romulus.

Why it matters

The cathedral is the mother church of the Diocese of Fiesole. The 1028 transfer brought the bishop’s seat within the Etruscan walls, around which the town centre developed. The building combines a Romanesque structure, a thirteenth-century expansion, a sixteenth-century apse and a nineteenth-century restoration that gave the exterior its present appearance.

What to notice

The interior retains a three-aisled Romanesque layout, a raised presbytery above the crypt and open timber roof trusses. The high altar holds a late-Gothic triptych by Bicci di Lorenzo depicting the Madonna and Child with saints. Other works include Giovanni della Robbia’s glazed terracotta of Saint Romulus, a Madonna attributed to the Maestro del Bigallo, frescoes by Cosimo Rosselli and sculpture by Andrea Ferrucci. The apse, enlarged in the sixteenth century under Bishop Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, contains Nicodemo Ferrucci’s Stories of Saint Romulus. In the crypt are a thirteenth-century painted Madonna, the cathedral’s oldest icon, and the relics of its patron saint. The tomb monument of Bishop Leonardo Salutati includes marble work by Mino da Fiesole.

Context and history

Before 1028 the bishop’s cathedral stood near the site of today’s Badia Fiesolana at San Domenico. Jacopo il Bavaro moved it within the town walls. The bell tower dates to a thirteenth-century expansion in 1213 and was later modified. Between 1878 and 1883, architect Michelangelo Maiorfi’s restoration reshaped the church and gave it the neo-Gothic façade visible today. Its furnishings range from Gothic altarpieces to Renaissance tombs and the sixteenth-century apse frescoes.