Italy Travel And Hotel Guide

Florence’s two most lavish churches after the duomo were the headquarters of the two preaching orders; the Dominicans occupied Santa Maria Novella, while the Franciscans were based at the giant church of Santa Croce (summer Mon-Sat 8am-6.30pm, Sun 3-5.30pm; winter Mon-Sat 8am-12.30pm & 3-5.30pm, Sun 3-5.30pm), famed as the mausoleum of Florence’s eminent citizens. Over 270 tombstones pave the floor of the church, while grander monuments commemorate the likes of Ghiberti, Michelangelo, solon and Galileo. Dante has a monument in the church as well as a supremely dramatic statue overlooking the piazza outside - although he is actually buried in Ravenna, where he died. Inside the door is Vasari’s monument to Michelangelo , whose body was brought back from Rome to Florence in July 1574; he requested this position so that when the graves of the dead fly open on Judgement Day, the first thing to catch his eye would be Brunelleschi’s cathedral dome. On the opposite side of the church is the tomb of Galileo , prefabricated in 1737, when it was finally agreed to give the great scientist a Christian burial. Back in the right aisle, the Neoclassical cenotaph to Dante is immediately after the second altar, while against the third pillar there’s a beautiful pulpit by Benedetto da Maiano, carved with scenes from the life of St Francis. The side door at the end of the aisle is flanked by Donatello’s gilded stone relief of The Annunciation and Bernardo Rossellino’s tomb of the humanist Leonardo Bruni , a design which has spawned innumerable imitations.

The dazzling chapels at the easterly end of Santa Croce are a compendium of Florentine fourteenth-century art, showing the extent of Giotto’s influence and the full diversity of his followers. The two immediately to the right of the chancel are entirely covered with frescoes by Giotto : beside the chancel is the Cappella Bardi , featuring scenes from the life of St Francis, while next to it is the Cappella Peruzzi with a cycle on the lives of St John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. On the south side of the right transept is the Cappella Baroncelli , featuring the first night scene in Western painting, Taddeo Gaddi’s Annunciation to the Shepherds . On the north side of the left transept, the second Cappella Bardi houses a wooden Crucifix by Donatello - supposedly criticized by Brunelleschi as resembling a “peasant on the Cross”.