Fiesole Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of San Romolo, was erected by Bishop Jacopo il Bavaro in 1028, before being expanded in the thirteenth century and restored in the nineteenth century, from which its neogothic façade dates.
The interior of the cathedral is that of a Romanesque basilica with three naves: the central nave is entirely bare, except for the antependium of the marble altar (1273), and for the two frescoes depicting San Benedetto (1420) and San Sebastiano, both by Pietro Perugino (dating to the beginning of the sixteenth century). In the presbytery visitors can marvel at frescoes of the Stories of San Romolo painted on the apse’s semi-dome at the end of the same century by Nicodemo Ferrucci. Above the high altar we find the late Gothic triptych by Bicci di Lorenzo.
Two chapels open to the left of the presbytery. The sepulchral chapel of Bishop Leonardo Salutati is the Renaissance jewel in the Cathedral and hosts the funerary monument of the bishop in the form of a marble sarcophagus, finely sculpted by Mino da Fiesole, and shining in gold. Opposite you find the marble reredos with the Madonna in Adoration with Child between San Leonardo and San Remigio, crowned by a beautiful head of the Redeemer.
The crypt is located on the lower floor. In the bishops’ sepulchral chapel is a thirteenth-century panel of the Enthroned Madonna and Child, the Cathedral’s oldest icon, probably executed around 1230. Wrought iron railing closes the apsidal part of the crypt, where the relics of San Romolo are situated.
