When looking through a photograph album at the Alinari archives, I was shown this photograph of the Duomo in Florence taken sometime before 1874 when the album was created.

 

 

When you zero in on the facade of the Duomo, things get very interesting.  Instead of the brightly colored and highly embellished facade on the cathedral that one sees nowadays in Florence, this photograph reveals that the facade was left unfinished and unembellished after the Renaissance.

 

The following photo, of the Duomo today, shows the facade that was added to the building in the 1870s.