Santa Maria Novella Basilica

The Santa Maria Novella Basilica is one of the most important churches in Florence, so much so that it gave its name to one of the four main districts of the city, and was the main point of reference of the Dominican mendicant order in Florence.

Built starting in 1279, it is one of the very few churches in the city to boast a fifteenth-century facade which is one of the most important works of the Florentine Renaissance.

Inside, in addition to the sixteenth-century restorations of the Vasari school, there are important works such as the "Trinity", considered to be the first Renaissance painting by Masaccio, the wonderful "Crucifix" by Giotto, the "Crucifix" by Filippo Brunelleschi sculpted in response to the one by Donatello in Santa Croce, the frescoes of the Tornabuoni Chapel painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio with the help of a young Michelangelo Buonarroti, and many other works by Giambologna, Filippino Lippi, Alessandro Allori, Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino, Desiderio da Settignano and Benedetto da Maiano, just to name a few.