Basilica of Santa Croce

What it is

Santa Croce is the Franciscan mother church of Florence and the largest Franciscan church in the world. The foundation stone of the present building was laid on 3 May 1294, though a plaque in the south aisle gives 1295 and the operator notes that scholars now lean towards the later year. Arnolfo di Cambio designed it; the chancel was nearly finished when he died some time between 1302 and 1310, the nave and aisles followed, and the church was not consecrated until 1443, by Pope Eugene IV. In 1566 Cosimo I sent Giorgio Vasari to bring it into line with the Council of Trent: the rood screen came down, fourteen symmetrical altars went up along the aisle walls, and a good deal of earlier fresco went with them. What draws most visitors now is the second identity the church acquired. Roughly two hundred and fifty graves lie under the floor tiles, and above them stand the monuments that made Santa Croce the pantheon of Italy — Michelangelo, whose tomb Cosimo de' Medici commissioned in 1564, Galileo, Machiavelli, and the fifteenth-century chancellors Leonardo Bruni and Carlo Marsuppini. The complex is run by the Opera di Santa Croce, a non-profit that takes no money from the state or the Church.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What's inside

The ticket covers a whole monastic complex, not just the church. Inside the basilica, chapels open off the transept — Salviati, Bardi di Vernio, Niccolini, Bardi di Mangona, the Chancel Chapel and the Bardi Chapel — and the aisle walls carry Vasari's altars over the older fabric. The south transept leads into the Sacristy and the Novitiate, built between about 1435 and 1445 to a design probably by Michelozzo and paid for in full by Cosimo de' Medici, whose crest is still on the walls; the Rinuccini Chapel, the Novitiate Corridor, the Well Room and the Medici Chapel are all on that side, and Cimabue's Crucifix, ruined and salvaged after the 1966 flood, hangs in the Sacristy. Beyond the church lie the two cloisters. The first was a burial ground and is still called the chiostro dei morti; Baccio Bandinelli's God the Father, carved in 1556 for the cathedral choir, was installed there in 1843. The Pazzi Chapel opens off it. The Cenacolo, the fourteenth-century refectory, holds Taddeo Gaddi's Tree of Life and Last Supper of about 1345–50, Donatello's St Louis of Toulouse of 1418–25, and fragments of Orcagna's Triumph of Death. Under the transepts sit the crypt and the famedio.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

How long to spend

The Opera di Santa Croce puts the full circuit at roughly fifty minutes and says openly that a visitor can shorten or lengthen it to taste. This guide plans an hour, which is the honest figure once the floor slabs, the transept chapels, the Sacristy and the Cenacolo each get a few minutes rather than a glance. Read the wall labels in the refectory and take the museum rooms properly and ninety minutes is easy to spend; walk the nave, look at the four famous tombs and leave, and thirty-five will do it. The visit is sold in timed slots and the operator asks for punctuality. A ticket admits once, for the slot printed on it. Arrive more than fifteen minutes late and staff decide at the door whether to put you into the next slot, on the basis of how many people are already booked into it — so a late arrival is a real risk, not a formality, on a busy afternoon. An audio guide costs four euros booked online and six euros hired on the spot, in Italian, English, French, Spanish or German, and an official app is sold through the main stores. Either adds twenty to thirty minutes.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Season and crowds

From Monday to Saturday the complex opens at 9.30 am and closes at 5.30 pm, with no admission after 5.00 pm; the basilica itself starts clearing at 5.20 pm to move people towards the exit. Sunday is the trap. On Sundays and on Epiphany, All Saints and the Immaculate Conception, the complex does not open until 2.00 pm, which leaves three and a half hours rather than eight and makes a Sunday morning slot in a Florence itinerary impossible. The one full closure is Christmas Day. Mornings early in the week are the quieter half of the schedule, since the Sunday afternoon opening pushes a whole day's visitors into it. The church is also a working friary, and its liturgical timetable runs straight through visiting hours: mass at 6 pm daily and at 11 am on Sundays and religious holidays, the Sixth Hour prayer at noon from Monday to Saturday, confession from 10 am to noon and 4 to 6 pm, Eucharistic adoration on Thursdays from 5 to 6 pm and the rosary at 5.30 pm. Dress for the season — the operator warns that the complex as a whole gets very cold in winter.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Tickets

A full individual ticket is ten euros. The concession is six euros and covers visitors aged twelve to seventeen, university students, school parties of up to thirty-five, groups of more than fifteen and teachers holding an Edumuseicard; the guide is not included in any of those. A family ticket is ten euros, with children under eighteen admitted free when accompanied by a paying parent. Admission is free for children aged nought to eleven, residents of the municipality of Florence, people with disabilities and their carers, Firenze Card holders, licensed tour guides, accredited journalists and ICOM members — but a free ticket cannot be issued online and has to be collected at the ticket office of the monumental complex, with the document that proves the entitlement. Buying online adds a booking fee of one euro per ticket, waived for schools and family tickets. Anyone coming to pray or to attend a service pays nothing and is shown to the entrance reserved for worshippers. Two extras are worth knowing: audio guides at four euros online or six on site, earphones for groups at one euro fifty, mandatory above fifteen people. Keep the ticket — it buys reduced entry at Casa Buonarroti, Casa Vasari, the Horne museum and the Galileo museum.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Getting there

The address is Piazza Santa Croce 16, but the visitor entrance and the ticket office are not on the square. They are on the north side of the basilica, in Largo Bargellini, and people who queue on the piazza in front of the façade are queuing at the wrong door. From Santa Maria Novella station the walk through the historic centre takes about twenty minutes, and that is the operator's own recommendation. No car is needed, and one is a liability: Santa Croce sits inside the restricted traffic zone, in Area B. A driver who wants to enter the zone has to register the number plate with SAS at serviziallastrada.it and buy a daily transit or parking permit first; the alternative the operator suggests is to leave the car in the Sant'Ambrogio or Beccaria car parks and walk the short distance in. The nearest motorway exit is Firenze Sud. For a taxi, the radio taxi numbers are +39 055 4242, +39 055 4390 and +39 055 4798. Wheelchair users enter by the ramp in Largo Bargellini or the raised platform at the cloister entrance on the piazza, and admission for disabled visitors and their carers is free and given priority with no booking.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What to watch out for

The single thing to check before booking: the Bardi Chapel is closed for restoration, and Giotto's Stories of Saint Francis are not visible for the duration of the work. The Opera's notices page states this plainly and gives no reopening date. Anyone whose reason for coming is that fresco cycle should read that page again on the morning of the visit. The route has changed too, while accessibility work removes architectural barriers: after the basilica and the Sacristy, visitors now leave the church and re-enter Arnolfo's cloister through an external passageway. The Garden of St Francis is open only on a booked guided tour, arranged by email. Henry Moore's Warrior with Shield is no longer here — after maintenance it stands in the Terrazza di Saturno at Palazzo Vecchio. The free open days are basilica-only: on those dates the cloisters, the refectory, the Pazzi Chapel and the Cerchi Chapel stay shut, entry is by forty-five-minute slot from the ticket office until capacity is reached, and free tickets cannot be booked online. Two operator pages disagree on one of those dates, giving European Heritage Days as 26 and 27 September and as 27 and 28 September. Shoulders and legs must be covered; disposable robes are free at the desk.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Photography

Souvenir photography is allowed, without a tripod and without flash, strictly for private use, and not during religious services. Phones are to be kept on silent and used for nothing but pictures. Anything beyond that — study, scholarly, commercial or editorial use, film or television — needs written permission in advance from [email protected]. The no-flash rule matters more here than the usual notice implies, because the basilica interior is genuinely dark. The nave is lit through high windows and the transept chapels are darker still, so a phone will reach for a long exposure and the result will smear unless it is braced. Brace it against your own body or a bag: the operator asks visitors not to touch the works or the monuments, and a pier in this church usually is a monument. The best light in the complex is not inside the church at all. The Cenacolo's large two-light windows give the refectory an even wash that suits Taddeo Gaddi's back wall, and the first cloister is open sky, so late afternoon there is the one place where a hand-held frame is comfortable. The floor tomb slabs read best from directly above, in flat light, standing at their foot.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Where it is

Nearby

External links

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