Cathedral of San Lorenzo
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Transcript
Perugia’s cathedral looks unexpectedly unfinished from the main square because its exterior was never given the kind of complete marble facade visitors expect from major Italian churches. That incompleteness is useful. Cities are rarely finished according to one plan.
The cathedral also reminds us that Perugia periodically became a stage for papal politics. Popes stayed in the city, conclaves met here, and the balance between local government and papal authority shifted repeatedly. Standing between the cathedral and Palazzo dei Priori, you can read the square as a diagram of competing institutions: church and commune facing the same public space, neither one able to pretend the other did not exist.