Santa Croce

Santa Croce is Florence's great Franciscan basilica, built in the 13th century and finished over the following hundred years, and it holds one of the most remarkable collections of Renaissance art and famous tombs anywhere in the world. This is the church where Michelangelo is buried, where Galileo Galilei finally received a proper tomb after the Church rehabilitated him, and where Machiavelli, Ghiberti, and Rossini also rest. It's sometimes called the 'Temple of the Italian Glories' — a national pantheon dressed in Gothic stone and marble, sitting on one of Florence's most beautiful and spacious piazzas.

Inside, you're walking through centuries of extraordinary artistry. The nave is lined with funerary monuments and tombs, but it's the chapels that will stop you cold: the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels contain Giotto's frescoes, painted in the early 14th century and considered some of the most important works in Western art history. Cimabue's dramatic Crucifix hangs in the museum — it was badly damaged in the catastrophic 1966 flood that devastated Florence and remains a symbol of what was almost lost. The Pazzi Chapel, designed by Brunelleschi and accessed through the cloister, is a masterpiece of early Renaissance architecture — cool, rational, and breathtakingly elegant.

The piazza outside is worth arriving early for: it's vast, relatively uncrowded in the mornings, and flanked by the white and green marble facade of the church. A leather market operates nearby, though quality varies enormously — stick to the church and museum, where the real reward lies. Sundays have restricted morning hours due to Mass, so plan accordingly if you're visiting at the weekend.