Church sights in Tuscany
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Chiesa di Santa Trìnita
Heading towards the Ponte Santa Trìnita, built over the Arno in 1567 and painstakingly restored after being blown up by the Nazis in 1944, you pass this 14th-century church. Built in Gothic style and later given a Mannerist facade of indifferent taste, it shelters some of the best frescoes in the city. The church interior has little natural light, so you'll need to spring for a few coins to illuminate the chapels.
Don't miss Lorenzo Monaco's Annunciation (1422) in the Cappella Salimbenes/Bartholini, badly damaged by the 1966 flood but subsequently restored. During the restoration process, another fresco was found underneath, and this was removed and placed in the chapel…
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Cappella Bacci
Gracing the apse of the 14th-century Chiesa di San Francesco is one of the greatest works of Italian art, Piero della Francesca's fresco cycle of the Legend of the True Cross. Painted between 1452 and 1466, it relates in 10 episodes the story of the cross on which Christ was crucified. It was named in honour of the wealthy family that commissioned it.
The illustration of this medieval legend, as entertaining as it is inconceivable, begins in the top right-hand corner and follows the story of the tree that Seth plants on the grave of his father, Adam, and from which, eventually, the True Cross is made. A scene on the opposite wall shows the long-lost cross being…
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Piazza del Duomo & Around
Pictures don't do justice to the exterior of Florence's Gothic Duomo. While they reproduce the startling colours of the tiered red, green and white marble facade and the beautiful symmetry of the dome, they fail to give any sense of its monumental size. Officially known as the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, its construction begun in 1294 by Sienese architect Arnolfo di Cambio, but it wasn't consecrated until 1436. Its most famous feature, the enormous octagonal Cupola (dome) was built by Brunelleschi after his design won a public competition in 1420. The interior is decorated with frescos by Vasari and Zuccari, and the stained-glass windows are by Donatello, Paolo…
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Cattedrale di San Martino
Lucca's predominantly Romanesque cathedral dates to the start of the 11th century. Its stunning facade was constructed in the prevailing Lucca-Pisan style and designed to accommodate the pre-existing campanile. The reliefs over the left doorway of the portico are believed to be by Nicola Pisano.
The cathedral interior was rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries with a Gothic flourish. The Volto Santo (literally, Holy Countenance) is not to be missed. Legend has it that this simply fashioned image of a dark-skinned, life-sized Christ on a wooden crucifix was carved by Nicodemus, who witnessed the crucifixion. In fact, the Volto Santo has recently been dated to the 13th…
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Chiesa di San Domenico
St Catherine was welcomed into the Dominican fold within this imposing church, and its Cappella di Santa Caterina is adorned with frescoes by Il Sodoma depicting events in her life. Catherine died in Rome, where most of her body is preserved, but her head was returned to Siena (it's in a 15th-century tabernacle above the altar in the cappella), as was her desiccated thumb (in a small window box to the right of the chapel). Next to the thumb is a nasty-looking chain that the saint flagellated herself with.
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Chiesa di Sant'Agostino
This late-13th-century church at the northern end of town is best known for Benozzo Gozzoli's charming fresco cycle illustrating the life of St Augustine. Gozzoli also painted the highly unusual fresco of San Sebastian on the north wall, which shows the fully clothed saint protecting the citizens of San Gimignano, helped by a bare-breasted Virgin Mary and semi-robed Jesus (it alluded to the saint's supposed intervention to protect citizens during the 1464 plague). On Sundays at 11am, an English-language mass is celebrated in the cloister.
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Chiesa di San Domenico
A short detour from the duomo, this church has an unusual, asymmetrical facade and an austere interior dominated by a haunting Crucifixion over the main altar, one of Cimabue's earliest works. Note, too, the well-preserved fresco of Saint Philip and Saint Jacob and the Story of their Lives by Spinello Aretino (1350–1410) on the inside of the facade. You'll need a €1 coin to illuminate the Cimabue.
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Chiesa di Santa Margherita
For the most effective cardiovascular workout in Tuscany, hike up to this largely 19th-century church through the sleepy warren of steep cobbled lanes in the eastern part of town. Inside, the remains of St Margaret, the patron saint of Cortona, are on display in a 14th-century, glass-sided tomb above the main altar.
St Margaret's story is the archetypical sinner-to-saint tale. After spending her early life as a mistress and a mother to an illegitimate son, she was transformed after arriving in Cortona. After a few false-starts with local dreamboats, Margaret formed her own congregation, opened a hospital, received ecstasy-charged messages from heaven, prophesised the date…
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Chiesa di San Andrea
This 12th-century church was built outside the original city walls, hence its windowless (fortified) state. The facade is enlivened by a relief of the Journey and Adoration of the Magi (1166) and inside is a marble pulpit carved by Giovanni Pisano (1298–1301).
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Duomo
Pisa's cath-edral was paid for with spoils brought home after Pisans attacked an Arab fleet entering Palermo in 1063. Begun a year later, the cathedral, with its striking cladding of alternating bands of green and cream marble, became the blueprint floor for Romanesque churches throughout Tuscany. The elliptical dome, the first of its kind in Europe at the time, was added in 1380.
The cathedral was the largest in Europe when it was constructed; its breathtaking proportions were designed to demonstrate Pisa's domination of the Mediterranean. Its main facade – not completed until the 13th century – has four exquisite tiers of columns diminishing skywards, while the vast…
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Chiesa di San Michele in Foro
One of Lucca's many architecturally significant churches, this lovely Romanesque edifice marks the spot where the city's Roman forum once was. The present building with exquisite wedding-cake facade was constructed on the site of its 8th-century precursor over a period of nearly 300 years, beginning in the 11th century. Crowning the structure is a figure of the archangel Michael slaying a dragon. Inside, don't miss Filippino Lippi's 1479 painting of Sts Helen, Jerome, Sebastian and Roch (complete with plague sore) in the south transept.
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Pieve di Santa Maria
This 12th-century church (Arezzo's oldest) has a magnificent Romanesque arcaded facade adorned with dozens of carved columns, each uniquely decorated. Its 14th-century bell tower, with 40 apertures, is something of an emblem for the city. Above the central doorway are 13th-century carved reliefs known as the Cyclo dei Mesi, which represent the months of the year. January's figure has two faces: one looks back on the previous year and the other looks forward.
Inside, the undoubted highlight is Pietro Lorenzetti's polyptych, Madonna and Saints (1320–24), located beneath the semidome of the apse. Below the altar is a 14th-century silver bust reliquary of the city's patron…
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Chiesa d'Ognissanti
Stroll the length of lengthy Borgo d'Ognissanti, from Piazza Carlo Goldoni towards ancient city gate Porta al Prato, past antiques shops and designer boutiques to reach this 13th-century church, built as part of a Benedictine monastery. Much altered in the 17th century and given a new facade in the 19th century, it possesses a number of significant paintings, including Domenico Ghirlandaio's fresco of the Madonna della Misericordia protecting members of the Vespucci family, the church's main patrons. Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine navigator who gave his name to the American continent, is supposed to be the young boy whose head peeks between the Madonna and the old man.…
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Duomo
Construction of the duomo started in 1215 and work continued well into the 14th century. The magnificent facade of white, green and red polychrome marble was designed by Giovanni Pisano (the statues of philosophers and prophets are copies; you'll find the originals in the Museo dell'Opera).
In 1339 the city's leaders planned to enlarge the cathedral and create one of Italy's biggest churches. Known as the Duomo Nuovo (New Cathedral), the remains of this project are on Piazza Jacopo della Quercia, on the eastern side of the cathedral. The daring plan, to build an immense new nave with the present church becoming the transept, was scotched by the plague of 1348.
The interior…
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Chiesa di San Miniato al Monte
The real point of your exertions up to Piazzale Michelangelo is five minutes further uphill to this wonderful Romanesque church. It is dedicated to St Minius, an early-Christian martyr in Florence who is said to have flown to this spot after his death down in the town (or, if you want to believe an alternative version, walked up the hill head tucked underneath his arm).
The church dates to the early 11th century, although its typical Tuscan multicoloured marble facade was tacked on a couple of centuries later. Inside, 13th- to 15th-century frescoes adorn the south wall and intricate inlaid marble designs line the nave, leading to a fine Romanesque crypt. The sacristy in…
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Chiesa di Santa Maria della Spina
This breathtakingly exquisite church on the Arno's southern bank is a fine example of Pisan-Gothic. The now-deconsecrated church was built between 1230 and 1223 to house a reliquary of a spina (thorn) from Christ's crown. Its ornate, triple-spired exterior is encrusted with tabernacles and statues, but the interior is simple and perfectly suited to quiet reflection. The focal point is Andrea and Nino Pisano's Madonna and Child (aka Madonna of the Rose; 1345–48), a masterpiece of Gothic sculpture that still bears traces of its original colours and gilding.
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Basilica di Santo Spirito
The facade of this Brunelleschi church, smart on Florence's most shabby chic (some might say grungy) piazza, is most striking on summer nights when it forms an atmospheric backdrop to open-air concerts and a buzzing outdoor social scene.
Inside, the entire length of the basilica is lined by a series of semicircular chapels, and the colonnade of grey pietra forte Corinthian columns lends an air of monumental grandeur. Artworks to look out for include Domenico di Zanobi's Madonna of the Relief (1485) in the Cappella Velutti, in which the Madonna wards off a little red devil with a club, and Filippino Lippi's poorly lit Madonna with Child and Saints (1493-94) in the Cappella…
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Basilica di Santa Maria Novella
Just south of the central train station, Stazione di Santa Maria Novella, this church was begun in the mid-13th century as the Dominican order's Florentine base. Although it was mostly completed by 1360, work on the facade and embellishment of the interior continued well into the 15th century.
The lower section of the green-and-white marble facade is transitional from Romanesque to Gothic, while the upper section and the main doorway were designed by Leon Battista Alberti and completed between 1456 and 1470.
The interior is full of artistic masterpieces. As you enter, look straight ahead and you will see Masaccio's superb fresco Trinity (1424-25), one of the first artworks…
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Basilica di San Lorenzo
In 1425 Cosimo the Elder, who lived nearby, commissioned Brunelleschi to rebuild the basilica on this site, which dated to the 4th century. The new building would become the Medici parish church and mausoleum - many members of the family are buried here. Considered one of the most harmonious examples of Renaissance architecture, the basilica has never been finished - Michelangelo was commissioned to design the facade in 1518 but his design in white Carrara marble was never executed, hence the building's rough unfinished appearance.
In the austere interior, columns of pietra serena (soft grey stone) crowned with Corinthian capitals separate the nave from the two aisles.…
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Collegiata
San Gimignano's Romanesque cathedral, officially titled the Duomo Collegiata o Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta but commonly known as the Collegiata (referring to the college of priests who originally managed it), has a bare facade that belies the remarkably vivid frescoes inside.
Parts of the building date back to the second half of the 11th century, but the frescoes, which resemble a vast medieval comic strip, date from the 14th century. Entry is via the side stairs and through a loggia that was originally covered and functioned as the baptistry.
Facing the altar, along the left (north) wall, are scenes from Genesis and the Old Testament by Bartolo di Fredi, dating from…
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Basilica di Santa Croce
When Lucy Honeychurch, the heroine of EM Forster's A Room With a View, is stranded in Santa Croce without a Baedeker, she first panics and then, looking around, wonders why it's thought to be such an important building. After all, doesn't it look just like a barn ('a black and white facade of surprising ugliness')?
On entering, many visitors to this massive Franciscan basilica share the same reaction. The austere interior can come as something of a shock after the magnificent neo-Gothic facade, which is enlivened by varying shades of coloured marble (both it and the campanile are 19th-century additions). The church itself was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio between 1294 and…
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