Basilica of Santa Croce
Arnolfo di Cambio (traditional attribution) · Florence, Italy · 1385
Santa Croce is the principal Franciscan church of Florence and anchors a large public piazza on the eastern side of the historic center. A broad timber-roofed nave, pointed arcades and a network of family chapels create a spacious mendicant interior suited to preaching and burial. Giotto's frescoed chapels and monuments to figures including Michelangelo and Galileo give the church exceptional cultural density. The marble façade, however, belongs to Niccolò Matas's nineteenth-century campaign, while the complex also includes cloisters and Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel. The date is an approximate completion point for the medieval basilica, whose attribution to Arnolfo di Cambio remains traditional rather than fully documented.