Two beautiful churches with fine art and sculpture. The tombs and memorials of many notable Italians including Galileo, Michelangelo and Dante can be seen in in Santa Croce .
The Dominicans were granted the 11th century church, west of the city centre, and dedicated to Santa Maria, as their base in Florence in 1219. In the mid 13th century they set about building a much larger church to be called Santa Maria Novella. It took decades to build and was finally consecrated in1420. The inlaid green and white marble facade was only completed in 1470 when a harmonious Renaissance upper section was added over the earlier lower section.
The queue was quite long when we visited but moved quite quickly. It was searingly hot and there is no shade but we had hats - an umbrella would have been even better! The church supplies a very informative leaflet for the visit.
Gothic arches in the same green and white grace the interior three-aisled space. Dominating the space is the crucifix by Giotto, hanging above the nave
There are many wonderful frescoes inside, by Masaccio, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi and others.
The chapels are generally named for the patrons who paid for them and their decoration.
The Ghirlandaio frescoes in the Tornabuoni Chapel are particularly beautiful.
The Strozzi di Mantova chapel was covered in scaffolding so it was almost impossible to see the scenes of the Last Judgement, Hell, Purgatory and Paradise by Nardo di Cione.
The Spanish Chapel off the Green Cloister has wonderful frescoes by Andrea di Bonaiuto, completed in 1365-67. These depict allegorical scenes of the triumph of the Catholic Church over heresy, and the active and contemplative life of the Dominican order.
The Franciscan Basilica of Santa Croce, east of the city centre. dates from the 13th century. It contains not only wonderful pieces of art but also the tombs of many notable Italians including Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The website has a lot of information on the different aspects of the Basilica, its works of art and tombs.
The Chancel Chapel is decorated with frescoes by Agnelo Gaddi on the Legend of the True Cross.1
Stigmatisation of St Francis
The Bardi Chapel on the south side of the Chancel Chapel is decorated with Stories of St Francis by Giotto but was covered in scaffolding for restoration on our visit in 2025. Only the exterior frescoes were visible.
The Peruzzi Chapel to the south of the Bardi Chapel has frescoes of Stories of St John the Baptist and of St John the Evangelist by Giotto.1
The Sacristy is a large hall with the Rinuccini chapel at the east end.1
The crucifix by Cimabue on the north wall of the Sacristy has become a symbol of the floods of 1966 when it was severely damaged.1
There is a monumental memorial tomb to Galileo which wasn't completed until nearly a century after his death as the clergy were not in favour of celebrating someone suspected of heresy. This stemmed from Galileo's advocacy of a heliocentric universe, based on Copernican theory and his own observations of the planets, using his newly invented telescopes.
Within the cloisters is the monument to Florence Nightingale, a nurse who founded modern nursing practices of good hygiene and nutritious food.
The convent Refectory off the cloister, now a museum, was where meals were taken.
The Crucifixion was a traditional subject for early convent refectories but here there is the first instance of the Last Supper in a Refectory. This was to become the standard theme in the15th and 16th centuries. It is painted on the back wall of the Refectory with, above it, the Crucifixion as a Tree of Life with prophets urging the viewer to contemplate Christ's sacrifice and flanked by frescoes of the Stigmatisation of St Francis and three religious frescoes relating to food.
The painting of the Last Supper by Vasari which hangs here was originally created for the Refectory of the Murate, a Benedictine convent. When religious orders were suppressed in the early 19th century by order of the French government the Murate was closed and all of its possessions became the property of the state. It eventually was brought to Santa Croce where it hung in the Catellani Chapel for over 50 years. The painting was badly damaged in the floods of 1966 and took many years of painstaking restoration before it could be rehung in the Refectory, this time fitted with a lifting mechanism so that if the floods returned it could be rapidly raised out of harm's way.
The Tree of Life fresco was also badly damaged in the floods and had to be detached from the wall for restoration.
Three or four blocks north east of Santa Croce is an excellent pizza restaurant - Il Pizzaiuolo. We both had the Rosé with nduja, buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil, and a glass of Chianti.
Vivoli always used to be my favourite gelateria in Florence; it's still good, but we thought Dei Neri was better. It is close to Santa Croce and every time we passed by there was a queue stretching down the street. This was principally people wanting Affogato, a new fad in ice cream - vanilla or pistachio ice cream in a shot of espresso. It's not for me.
We queued for half an hour in the sun to get chocolate and chocolate orange. The latter was good but the chocolate a little disappointing.
There is a small wine window near Vivoli. The tradition of selling wine through these wine windows was begun in 1559 when Cosimo de' Medici I decreed that noble families could sell excess wine from the vineyards in small amounts at their city palazzi - an added bonus was that this kind of sale would be tax-free.
The original wine windows were installed in doors, only later, as the idea caught on, were they put into walls. As walls were generally over a metre thick this was an expensive and difficult option. They came into their own during plague years when wine could be sold "at a distance", and for the same reason many were revived during the years of the covid pandemic.2
The best gelateria, for us, is Dei Neri, which is on Via dei Neri just south of Santa Croce. We went back several times. Superb lemon ice cream, excellent chocolate, and the chocolate Grezzo di Modica is out of this world - definitely the best gelateria in Florence in our opinion.
By no means did we go to every gelateria in the city, though we had a good try!