At the highest point in town, surrounded by the Parco il Prato with its 16th-century Medici fortress ruins, Arezzo's cathedral was slowly agglomerated between 1278 and 1510, though it took until 1859 to raise the neo-Gothic bell tower and until 1935 to finish the simple facade. Among the masterpieces inside, the greatest may be the stained-glass windows (1519-23) by the undisputed master of the form, the French immigrant Guillaume de Marcillat. This is one of the few complete cycles of his work in Italy that hasn't been destroyed, and it includes the Pentecost rose window in the facade; the Calling of St. Matthew, the Baptism of Christ, the Expulsion of Merchants from the Temple, the Adulteress, and the Raising of Lazarus along the right wall; and Saints Silvester and Lucy in the chapel to the left of the apse. De Marcillat, who left France after becoming a Dominican friar (apparently to avoid murder charges), painted the first three ceiling vaults of the nave.
There are fine Gothic tombs throughout the church, and the city's patron saint, St. Donato, is buried under the beautifully sculpted 14th-century Gothic high altar. At the end of the left aisle, on the wall next to the sacristy door, is a scraggly-haired but still magnificent Mary Magdalene frescoed by Piero della Francesca (use the switch hidden on the pillar across from the fresco to turn on the light). Sienese sculptors Agostino da Giovanni and Agnolo di Ventura, who worked on the high altar, created the Gothic stone comic book of the tomb of Bishop Guido Tarlati in the left aisle. The 14th-century relief panels depict scenes from the life of the warrior bishop with Aretine landscapes in the background. The mammoth 1535 cantoria beyond it was Vasari's first go at architecture.
The large Cappella della Madonna del Conforto (Lady Chapel) in the left aisle near the church entrance preserves several della Robbia terra cottas, including an Assumption, a Crucifixion, and a pretty Madonna and Child by Andrea, plus a polychrome Madonna and Child with Saints attributed to Giovanni. In the small baptistery is a font bearing Donatello-school schiacciato relief panels -- the Baptism of Christ scene may have been carved by Donatello himself.
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