South of the palazzo is the city’s cathedral , built from a much altered design of Michelangelo’s and completely upstaged by the adjoining 13th-century Baptistry . This Romanesque gem is completely frescoed with luminous Biblical scenes by Giusto de’ Menabuoi, a Giotto follower and master in his own right for the cupola depicting hundreds of male and female saints posed as though for a school graduation photo, exchanging glances and stealing looks at the Madonna. The inside of the dome shows Christ Pantocrator holding an open book inscribed with the words Ego sum alpha et omega (I am the beginning and the end), and the rear apse wall illustrates his meaning with frescoes that illuminate Biblical stories of creation, redemption and the apocalypse.
