The grand facade, with a very special structure of three cusps, was started in Romanesque style, still prevalent at the bottom: note the St. George and the scenes of the New Testament above the central door, the work of the sculptor Nicholaus (1135). The upper part, a few decades later, is in Gothic style and features, in addition to the numerous arch and, a magnificent Universal Judgment carved from the unknown, above the central loggia. Beneath these sculptures is an elegant Gothic lodge containing a statue, formerly golden, of the Virgin and the Child, a work of the first half of the fifteenth century attributed to Michael from Florence. Q8In the lower part of the facade, on the left, a headboard recalls Ferrara's transition from estense power to that of Pope Clement VIII. On the right, within a niche, is the statue of the Marquis Albert dEste founder of the University (1391). The side of the Trento and Trieste square is decorated with two lodges with carved columns. At the bottom runs the Merciai Lodge, occupied by shops since the time of the Medioevo.Al the center of the side you can see the surviving structures of the ancient Gate of Months, destroyed in the eighteenth century, whose sculptures are partly preserved in the Cathedral Museum. An impressive Renaissance bell tower, in eroded white marble, is an unfinished work attributed to Leon Battista Alberti. The apse in brick is the work of the greatest architect and urban planner of Ferrara, Biagio Rossetti.
