Santa Croce

Despite being only a hop, skip and jump from the city’s major museums, most of this ancient part of Florence is far removed from the tourist maelstrom. The streets behind main sight Basilica di Santa Croce are home to plenty of locals, all of whom seem to be taking their neighbourhood’s reinvention as hipster central – epicentre of the city’s bar and club scene – with remarkable aplomb.

Top attractions

These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Santa Croce.

  • Basilica

    Basilica di Santa Croce

    The austere interior of this Franciscan basilica is a shock after the magnificent neo-Gothic facade enlivened by varying shades of coloured marble. Most visitors come to see the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo and Ghiberti, but frescoes by Giotto in the chapels to the right of the altar are the real highlights. The basilica was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio between 1294 and 1385 and owes its name to a splinter of the Holy Cross donated by King Louis IX of France in 1258.

  • Museum

    Museo del Bargello

    It was behind the stark walls of Palazzo del Bargello, Florence's earliest public building, that the podestà (governing magistrate) meted out justice from the 13th century until 1502. Today the building safeguards Italy's most comprehensive collection of Tuscan Renaissance sculpture, with some of Michelangelo's best early works and several by Donatello. Michelangelo was just 21 when a cardinal commissioned him to create the drunken grape-adorned Bacchus (1496–97). Unfortunately the cardinal didn't like the result and sold it.

  • Museum

    Fondazione Zeffirelli

    Opera buffs will adore this museum celebrating more than seven decades of work by the late, internationally renowned, Florence-born film director Franco Zeffirelli (1923–2019). Housed in the San Firenze Complex, a magnificent late-Baroque palazzo which previously served as the city's tribunal and courthouse (until it moved out of the historic centre to Novoli), the exhibition begins in 1953 and spans 20 ‘chapters’ or rooms. Admire scene sketches, costumes, posters, flyers, set-design models, original drawings and behind-the-scenes photographs. The exquisite, ground-floor music room hosts occasional chamber-music concerts and film screenings.

  • Piazza

    Piazza di Santa Croce

    This square was cleared in the Middle Ages to allow the faithful to gather when the church itself was full. In Savonarola's day, heretics were executed here. Such an open space inevitably found other uses, and from the 14th century it was often the colourful scene of jousts, festivals and calcio storico (historic football) matches. The city's 2nd-century amphitheatre took up the area facing the square's western end: Piazza dei Peruzzi, Via de' Bentaccordi and Via Torta mark the oval outline of its course.

  • Museum

    Fondazione Casa Buonarroti

    Though Michelangelo never lived in Casa Buonarroti, his heirs devoted some of the artist’s hard-earned wealth to the construction of this 17th-century palazzo (mansion) to honour his memory. The little museum contains frescoes of the artist’s life and two of his most important early works – the serene, bas-relief Madonna of the Stairs and the unfinished Battle of the Centaurs.

  • Museum

    Museo Horne

    One of the many eccentric Brits who made Florence home in the early 20th century, Herbert Percy Horne bought and renovated this Renaissance palazzo, then installed his eclectic collection of 14th- and 15th-century Italian art, ceramics, furniture and other oddments. There are a few works by masters such as Giotto and Fra' Filippo Lippi. More interesting is the furniture, some of which is exquisite.