Il Duomo

Even if it was completely rebuilt after the Second World War, the Dome of Livorno keeps the characteristics of the original layout planned and carried out between 1594 and 1606 by the architects Pieroni and Cantagallina. On the inside, works of art and decorations are authentic and they were saved from bombardments. Also the bells of the original tower, rebuilt in 1953, have been found.

The dome should have started in 1581, as Francesco I de' Medici had settled, but then the works were interrupted and Ferdinando I started them again and assigned them to the Cantagallina. The new architect brought some remarkable changes to Peroni's drawings. The bell tower was built later in 1607 while the transept and the lateral chapels date to the XVIII centuries.
The future dome was consecrated as a parish in 1606 and it later became a Collegiata in 1629. the title of Cathedral was given to it in 1806, only. The bombardments of 1943 severely damaged its structure and pulled its belfry down. Nevertheless, this did not prevent the inhabitants of Livorno from building the construction again in all its splendour, with its simple façade preceded by a porch and with its one-nave layout.
Unfortunately, its interior ceiling decorated by Vincenzo Ricordati calle the "Emperor" was lost. Instead, the "Trionfo di Santa Giulia" by Jacopo Ligozzi, the "Assunzione della Madonna" by Domenico Cresti da Passignano and the "San Francesco che riceve il Bambino da Maria" by Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli, painted between 1619 and 1623, have been restored and have substituted the ceiling. Inside the Dome of Livorno there is also a small XVI-century painting, carried out by Andrea del Sarto's school, depicting the "Sacra Famiglia con San Giovanni e San Paolo".
To the left of the XVIII-century transept there is the chapel of the "Ss. Sacramento", a work by the architect Giovanni del Fantasia. On the inside, there is the altar by Giovanni Baratta and the paintings by Giuseppe Maria Terreni who depicted Sant'Ambrogio, Sant'Agostino, San Girolamo and San Gregorio Magno. To the right of the transept there is the chapel of the Madonna. Bombardments destroyed it completely, too and it was rebuilt and enriched with paintings by the Gazzarini.