On a budget, Baptistery of San Giovanni still earns its price.
Included in Brunelleschi Pass €30
Walk in, tip your head back, and the entire octagonal ceiling is a single shimmering field of 13th-century gold mosaic — a Last Judgement with a giant Christ and a devil devouring the damned, the kind of thing that stops a room of jaded visitors mid-sentence. It rewards a slow look the way a planetarium does: stand under the lantern, let your eyes adjust, and the gold reads as light rather than decoration. Ten quiet minutes here outclass far longer waits elsewhere. The downside is purely that the famous bronze doors outside are replicas (the originals are in the Opera museum next door).