The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo houses the original sculptural decoration removed from the Cathedral, Baptistery, and Campanile over the centuries — pieces now protected indoors while replicas take their place outside. The highlight for most visitors is standing directly in front of Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise, the gilded bronze Baptistery doors that Michelangelo supposedly declared worthy of heaven's entrance, displayed at eye level in a dramatic double-height gallery.
Michelangelo's unfinished Pietà (the Bandini Pietà, intended for his own tomb) occupies a prominent position, along with Donatello's striking wooden Mary Magdalene and the original marble choirs (cantorie) by Donatello and Luca della Robbia. The museum reopened in a greatly expanded form in 2015 and now offers one of the most coherent presentations of Florentine Gothic and early Renaissance sculpture anywhere in the city. The combined Duomo ticket covers entrance here.