Santa Croce

Florence’s Santa Croce is home to the remains of many of her most famous folks. The church is big – almost as long as St. Peter’s in Rome, though not quite as tall and nowhere close to as wide. It’s based on a T shape rather than the more common Latin cross, and so the lack of space behind the altar leaves the proportions feeling a little stumpy and non-majestic. At the moment, a bunch of conservation is happening, and most of the altar and a good stretch of the right nave are blanketed in scaffolding, populated respectively by patient restorers and buff construction workers.

This church and the adjacent monastic buildings were dedicated to St. Francis, and run by Franciscan monks. Much of the iconography in the church points to this, with crossed hands showing Francis’ stigmata appearing in places where one would expect to find more scenes of Christ or the Crucifixion.

Among the famous buried here are Galileo, Dante, Alberti, and Michelangelo. Galileo upset the church so much before his death that there were special rules in place to forbid his burial on sacred ground. The Franciscans hid his body until everybody wised up to his brilliance, and then proudly buried him in Santa Croce.

Georgio Vasari, principal biographer of the Renaissance, re-designed much of the interior space during the Counter Reformation, and took special interest in some tombs to make them more harmonious with the interior. Michelangelo’s was one such tomb. Although Michelangelo died in Rome and wanted to be buried there, the Medici family pulled powerful rank over him yet one more time, and decided he should be honored with other famous men of arts and letters in Florence. Vasari at least softened the blow by designing a sumptuous tomb, topped by frescos in the brilliant colors of Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, and with allegories of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture frozen in marble mourning at the base.