Duomo — A Cathedral Built Around a Miracle
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
The cathedral dominates Orvieto because it was designed to do more than serve a local parish. Its construction began in 1290, and tradition connected the new church with the Miracle of Bolsena, an event associated with the establishment of the feast of Corpus Christi. The relic is preserved in the cathedral, but the building itself grew over centuries through changing Gothic designs.
Look at the façade as a public argument in stone and mosaic: biblical history, sculpture, coloured marble and glittering surfaces turn theology into something legible from the piazza. Inside, the Cappella di San Brizio contains Luca Signorelli’s powerful late-fifteenth-century frescoes of the Last Judgment. They later attracted artists including Michelangelo.
The useful point is not that one genius designed Orvieto Cathedral. No one did. Its identity came from generations of architects, sculptors, mosaicists and patrons working on a structure whose meaning kept expanding.