The Cathedral of Padua is a plain, unfinished sixteenth-century church built from a design partly attributed to Michelangelo — substantial but, frankly, not the headline attraction on the square. The real draw is the Baptistery next door, a squat twelfth-century Romanesque building with a low dome.
Step inside and the walls and dome explode in colour. Between 1376 and 1378, the painter Giusto de' Menabuoi covered every surface with a complete cycle of biblical frescoes, ending in an immense Paradise in the dome: Christ in glory surrounded by concentric rings of saints, prophets, and angels. It is a contender for the most beautiful baptistery interior in Italy and almost always quiet.