The Basilica of Santa Croce is an impressive Franciscan church known for its many funerary monuments of artists and illustrious personalities who have made it the Pantheon of Florence.
Inside there is the tomb of the sixteenth-century writer and politician Niccolò Machiavelli, the scientist Galileo Galilei, the artist Michelangelo and the favorite architect of the Medici, Giorgio Vasari.
These and many more are the extraordinary works that you can see with the tour to Santa Croce.
To enjoy the beauty of the Basilica, choose a guided tour: you can enjoy a personalized experience!
Tour of Santa Croce: details and duration of the visit
After an illustration of the exteriors made of white and green marble slabs, typical of the Florentine Renaissance style, in the upper part of the façade you can admire the Star of David, an allusion to the Jewish architect Matas buried in the churchyard in front of what was then the main entrance.
The visit continues towards the interiors to admire the architectural structure and understand the various phases of modernization commissioned by Cosimo I of the Medici according to the directives of the Counter-Reformation.
Along the right aisle are the funerary monuments of Michelangelo, the cenotaph of Dante Alighieri, the funeral monument of Niccolò Machiavelli.
The Main Chapel with its Gothic architecture is decorated with frescoes from the 1300s with a religious theme and exhibits a beautiful polychrome wooden Crucifix from 1320. The chapels on the right of the Maggiore belong to noble Florentine families and decorated with frescoes mainly by Giotto. To the left of the Maggiore there are other frescoed chapels and in one of them is exhibited the Crucifix by Donatello.
Continuing with the visit is the Medici Chapel with the numerous coats of arms of the Family, commissioned in 1445 by Cosimo the Elder. The Sacristy, a large room covered with trusses, with wooden cabinets from the 1400s, exhibits illuminated reliquaries and chorales. Here you can admire the frescoed series by Taddeo Gaddi in 1300 with the theme of the Crucifixion, represented as the Tree of Life, and that of the Last Supper.
Along the left aisle there is the funeral monument of Galileo Galilei and the beautiful pipe organ of the 1500s. We enter the Great Cloister known as the Park of Remembrance because it is dedicated to the Florentine soldiers who died in the First World War. Overlooking the Cloister is the Pazzi Chapel by Brunellechi, a symbol of Renaissance architecture, with Della Robbia decorations. The tour then continues towards the fourteenth-century Refectory where Cimabue’s Crucifix is located, a symbol of the transition from Byzantine to modern painting. The Crucifix still shows the consequences suffered by the flood of Florence in 1966.
Santa Croce: the stages of the tour
The guided tour of the Church of Santa Croce lasts 2 hours.
By booking you will have personalized attention and you will be able to manage the tour according to your interests and specific needs.
By choosing Florenceforanyone you will have the flexibility to be able to spend more time in certain places based on your curiosity, you will be able to have in-depth and additional information, and, above all, you will be able to avoid long waits with the skip-the-line formula.
The stops of the tour are:
- External description of the Basilica
- Right nave with the funerary monuments of Michelangelo and Dante,
- Main Chapel with the frescoed series by Agnolo Gaddi on the stories of the True Cross
- the chapels on the right frescoed by Giotto
- the chapels on the left with Donatello’s Crucifix
- Medici Chapel
- Sacristy
- Left nave with the tomb of Galileo Galilei
- Museum area with Cimabue’s Crucifix
- Pazzi Chapel
- Great Cloister
