Chiesa di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

Lonely Planet review

Built on the site of an ancient temple to Minerva, this is the only Gothic church in Rome. First modelled on the Basilica di Santa Maria in Florence, it later underwent various transformations and little remains of the original 13th-century design. The surprisingly restrained façade is baroque, the rose windows a 19th-century addition. Look closely and you can still see Latin inscriptions on the façade - flood markers, with one dating to 1422.

The church harbours a treasure-trove of Renaissance jewels. In the Cappella Carafa, last chapel in the southern transept, are two superb 15th-century frescoes by Filippino Lippi, depicting episodes from the life of St Thomas Aquinas. Carafa, who later became Pope Paul IV, is also buried in the chapel.

Left of the high altar is one of Michelangelo's lesser-known sculptures, Cristo Risorto (Christ Bearing the Cross; 1520), to which blush-saving bronze drapery was later added. An altarpiece of the Madonna and Child in the second chapel in the northern transept is attributed to Fra Angelico, the Dominican friar and painter, also buried in the church.

The body of St Catherine of Siena, minus her head (which is in Siena), lies under the high altar and the tombs of two Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII, are in the apse.