traveldk.com

Gothic pantheon of cultural heroes, containing the tombs of Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Rossini and Galileo (reburied here in 1737). Giotto frescoed the two chapels to the right of the altar. Through the sacristy is a renowned leather shop.

Masolino started the Brancacci Chapel’s frescoes of St Peter’s life in 1424. Another of his works, Adam and Eve , is rather sweet compared to the powerful Expulsion from the Garden by his successor, Masaccio. Filippino Lippi completed the cycle in 1485.

Among the masterpieces here are Masaccio’s Trinità (1428; painting’s first use of perspective), Giotto’s Crucifix , Filippino Lippi’s Cappella Strozzi frescoes (1486) and Ghirlandaio’s decorous sanctuary frescoes (1485). The cloisters’ greenish Noah frescoes (1446) are warped perspectives by Paolo Uccello.

Buontalenti provided the façade, while Ghirlandaio frescoed the Cappella Sasetti with the Life of St Francis set in 15th-century Florence.

The Michelozzo-designed entry cloister was frescoed by Mannerists Andrea del Sarto, Rosso and Pontormo. The Baroque, octagonal tribune is decorated with Perugino’s Madonna and Saints and Bronzino’s Resurrection . Sculptures by Giambologna festoon his tomb in the back chapel.

Brunelleschi’s influential masterpiece of Renaissance design. The building’s proportions are picked out in clean lines of pietra serena stone against white plaster. Seek out altarpieces by Filippino Lippi (Madonna and Child with Saints , 1466) and Verrocchio (a minimalist St Monica and Augustinian Nuns ).

This isolated Cistercian abbey was founded by Charlemagne, but the building dates from 1118. Inside, several column capitals are beautifully carved in alabaster. White-robed monks sing a Gregorian chant five times daily; ask them for a peek at the sacristy’s earthy frescoes.

Gorgeous French-style Romanesque Cistercian abbey in the countryside (see Sant’Antimo) .

A striped Romanesque-Gothic pile, richly decorated by the likes of Giovanni Pisano, Donatello, Pinturicchio, Michelangelo, Beccafumi and Bernini.

Brunelleschi’s ingenious double-shell dome revived the genius of ancient builders to kick-start Renaissance architecture (see The Duomo Group, Florence).