At least a week could be spent exploring churches in Florence. I suppose everyone has their favorite. Santa Croce is mine. In fact it's in my top 5 for all of Europe.
There is something intimate and atmospheric about this sacred place. It captivated me when I was in Florence in 1977 and it has never let me go. I don't think it was a coincidence that the apartment we rented was across the street from it. We walked past it daily while we were in Florence.
It was on Ramona's must-see list and we all visited it together. I got these pictures at around sunset on a different day. The taped off area you see in front was for a special event to be held in the piazza a few days after we left.
Dante's presence is both outside and inside.
The tombs and memorials for famous people certainly are impressive. This is Galileo's. Because of his scientific "heresy," when he died in 1642 he was buried in a relatively obscure part of the church. His body was moved to this tomb in 1737.
Michelangelo's tomb is a popular photo op. The story goes that he chose this location in Santa Croce himself so that when the front doors of the basilica are opened, he can see the Duomo.
Of course, Dante is memorialized here, although the tomb is empty. He is actually buried in Ravenna at the Church of San Pier Maggiore.
And what's a great church without a great historian, philosopher, writer and a main founder of modern political science buried there? This is the tomb of Machiavelli.
There are many other famous people buried here, but it's not really these tombs that get me.
The church architecture is of the simple, even austere type I like. It is the largest Franciscan church in the world. It replaced an older building and construction was started in 1294. It was consecrated in 1442.
I love the space, but that's only part of Santa Croce's hold on me.
I'm a big fan of Cimabue and Giotto and the frescoes are astonishing. I just wasn't able to get any good pictures. You can see Cimabue's cross here with some of Giotto's frescoes.
This is Giotto's Resurrection of Drusiana.
As much as I love Giotto, it's not just his frescoes that keep bringing me back.
The courtyard area and the grill work are impressive, but it's not those either.
It's the tombs like this that I always want to see again and again. Now they are roped off, but when I first saw them, they weren't. You can see how worn the reliefs are from hundreds of years of people walking over them. There are over 250 tombs in the floor. Not all of them are as fancy as these, but they all are part of what makes Santa Croce unique.
The Duomo is the best known church in Florence. It is the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. It was begun in 1296 in Gothic style and finished in 1436 with the Brunelleschi dome. The links have much more information on the church with more pictures.
We did not go inside. That was partly because we got there after closing, and that was somewhat intentional to avoid the crowds. In fact, Trout just sat on a bench and watched the world go by while I walked around and took pictures.
As is so often the case, work was being done on the outside, mostly cleaning of this marble skin that was put there in the 19th century. This part had not been cleaned yet.
Giotto's bell tower isn't leaning, I was. This is on the side where Trout was sitting.
Here you can see some of the scaffolding for the work being done, along with an angle on the dome.
This is pretty impressive for a side entrance.
This is the main facade.
And these are the front doors.
This is the scene above the main doors.
And here is Mary and the baby Jesus in one of the niches.
This is another view of the bell tower.
These are the famous Ghiberti doors on the Baptistry, or at least reproductions of them. The original ones are in the museum for the Duomo. They were replaced to preserve them. I got there just as they were closing and rolling the security gate up.
Even after closing, the Duomo is a popular site.
I liked going around this back side. You can see the buttresses for the dome well here. More scaffolding, eh?
I loved this view -- including the clock.
So I worked my way back around to Trout.
The Piazza del Duomo is busy on all sides.
Trout didn't read his book or gawk at Italian girls the whole time he waited for me. He did read about this guy as best he could. This is a sculpture of Brunelleschi consulting his drawings as he looks at his dome.
That was the extent of our church going in Florence. There are lots of advantages to visiting this city: there is so much to see, it is within decent walking distance of the major areas to stay in and it is almost all flat.
