[Florence] Santa Croce Basilica (emple of the Ital 5306a923996247ae8f88e619253bd706

[Florence] Santa Croce Basilica (emple of the Italian Glories)

Being the burial place of some of the most notable Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, the poet Foscolo, the philosopher Gentile and the composer Rossini, it is also known as the Temple of the Italian Glories

The basilica is the largest Franciscan church in the world. Legend says that Santa Croce was founded by St Francis himself.

In 1940, during the safe hiding of various works during World War II, Ugo Procacci noticed the Badia Polyptych being carried out of the church. He reasoned that this had been removed from the Badia Fiorentina during the Napoleonic occupation and accidentally re-installed in Santa Croce.

In 1966, the Arno River flooded much of Florence, including Santa Croce. The water entered the church bringing mud, pollution and heating oil. The damage to buildings and art treasures was severe, taking several decades to repair.


Funerary monuments

The basilica became popular with Florentines as a place of worship and patronage and it became customary for greatly honoured Florentines to be buried or commemorated there. Some were in chapels “owned” by wealthy families such as the Bardi and Peruzzi. As time progressed, space was also granted to notable Italians from elsewhere. For 500 years monuments were erected in the church including those to:

• Leon Battista Alberti (15th-century architect and artistic theorist)

• Giovan Vincenzo Alberti (Florentine senator and minister to first two Lorraine Grand-Dukes)

• Vittorio Alfieri (18th-century poet and dramatist) by Antonio Canova

• Eugenio Barsanti (co-inventor of the internal combustion engine)

• Lorenzo Bartolini (19th-century sculptor)

• Julie Clary, wife of Joseph Bonaparte, and their daughter Charlotte Napoléone Bonaparte

• Leonardo da Vinci (1919 commemorative plaque, buried in Château d’Amboise in France)

• Leonardo Bruni (15th-century chancellor of the Republic, scholar and historian) by Bernardo Rossellino

• Dante (buried in Ravenna)

• Ugo Foscolo (19th-century poet)

• Galileo Galilei

• Giovanni Gentile (20th-century philosopher)

• Lorenzo Ghiberti (artist and bronze-smith)

• Giovanni Lami

• Niccolò Machiavelli by Innocenzo Spinazzi

• Carlo Marsuppini (15th-century chancellor of the Republic of Florence) by Desiderio da Settignano

• Michelangelo Buonarroti by Giorgio Vasari with sculptures by Valerio Cioli, Iovanni Bandini, and Battista Lorenzi.

  [14]

• Raffaello Morghen (19th-century engraver)

• Giovanni Battista Niccolini (poet)

• Gioachino Rossini by Giuseppe Cassioli

• Louise of Stolberg-Gedern (wife of Charles Edward Stuart, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’)

• Guglielmo Marconi (buried in his birthplace at Sasso Marconi, near Bologna)

• Enrico Fermi (nuclear physicist, memorial only - Fermi is buried in Chicago, Illinois)