Amalfi Cathedral (Duomo di Amalfi)

Amalfi Cathedral (Duomo di Sant'Andrea) is the medieval cathedral of the former maritime republic of Amalfi in Campania, Italy, and one of the most striking examples of Arab-Norman architecture in Europe. The cathedral stands at the top of a dramatic 62-step staircase dominating the Piazza del Duomo—the main square and social heart of the town—and its striped Romanesque-Byzantine facade, rebuilt in the 19th century in a neo-Moorish style, is immediately recognisable as Amalfi's defining image. Founded in the 9th century AD and dedicated to Saint Andrew the Apostle, whose relics were brought from Constantinople in 1208 and are interred in the crypt below the main altar, the cathedral reflects the multicultural trading empire that Amalfi operated across the Mediterranean at the height of its maritime power between the 9th and 11th centuries. The set of bronze cathedral doors, cast in Constantinople around 1060–1065 and among the earliest cast bronze doors in Europe, depict Christ, the Virgin, Saint Andrew, and Saint Peter in Byzantine style. The interior is largely Baroque following reconstruction, but the Cloister of Paradise (Chiostro del Paradiso) adjoining the cathedral is the essential highlight: a 13th-century Romanesque cloister with 120 interlacing pointed arches in Arab-Norman style, its columns forming a garden of ancient sarcophagi and sculptural fragments from the city's Romanesque period. The crypt, accessible by descending stairways from the nave, contains the relics of Saint Andrew beneath a 17th-century altar. The Diocesan Museum within the complex displays vestments, reliquaries, silverwork, and the original medieval bronze doors removed from the cathedral portal.