Piazza Santa Croce is one of the main squares of the centre

Historic centre of Florence

The historic centre of Florence is quartiere 1 of the Italian city of Florence. This quarter was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982.- External links :* * *...

 of Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, Italy.
It is located near piazza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria is an L-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It was named after the Palazzo della Signoria, also called Palazzo Vecchio....

 and the National Central Library

National Central Library (Florence)

The Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze is a public national library in Florence, the largest in Italy and one of most important in Europe, one of the two central libraries of Italy, along with the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Rome.-History:...

, and takes its name by the Basilica of Santa Croce that overlook the square.

Basilica of Santa Croce

The Basilica is the largest Franciscan church in the world. Its most notable features are its sixteen chapel

Chapel

A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...

s, many of them decorated with fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

es by Giotto

Giotto di Bondone

Giotto di Bondone , better known simply as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence in the late Middle Ages...

 and his pupils, and its tombs and cenotaphs

Church monument

A church monument is an architectural or sculptural memorial to a dead person or persons, located within a Christian church. It can take various forms, from a simple wall tablet to a large and elaborate structure which may include an effigy of the deceased person and other figures of familial or...

.
It is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo Buonarroti, Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...

, Enrico Fermi

Enrico Fermi

Enrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...

, Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...

, Ugo Foscolo

Ugo Foscolo

Ugo Foscolo , born Niccolò Foscolo, was an Italian writer, revolutionary and poet.-Biography:Foscolo was born on the Ionian island of Zakynthos...

, Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...

, Luigi Cherubini

Luigi Cherubini

Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....

, Leon Battista Alberti, Vittorio Alfieri

Vittorio Alfieri

Count Vittorio Alfieri was an Italian dramatist, considered the "founder of Italian tragedy."-Early life:Alfieri was born at Asti in Piedmont....

, Gioacchino Rossini

Gioacchino Rossini

Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...

, Lorenzo Ghiberti

Lorenzo Ghiberti

Lorenzo Ghiberti , born Lorenzo di Bartolo, was an Italian artist of the early Renaissance best known for works in sculpture and metalworking.-Early life:...

, Lorenzo Bartolini

Lorenzo Bartolini

Lorenzo Bartolini was an Italian sculptor who infused his neoclassicism with a strain of sentimental piety and naturalistic detail which led him furthermore in the future, while he drew inspiration from the sculpture of the Florentine Renaissance rather than the overpowering influence of Antonio...

, Pier Antonio Micheli

Pier Antonio Micheli

Pier Antonio Micheli was a noted Italian botanist, professor of botany in Pisa, curator of the Orto Botanico di Firenze, author of Nova plantarum genera iuxta Tournefortii methodum disposita...

, Bartolomeo Cristofori

Bartolomeo Cristofori

Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco was an Italian maker of musical instruments, generally regarded as the inventor of the piano.-Life:...

, Giovanni Gentile

Giovanni Gentile

Giovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...

, thus it is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories (Tempio dell'Itale Glorie).

Palazzo Cocchi-Serristori

On the opposite side to the Basilica of Santa Croce is the Palazzo Cocchi-Serristori

Palazzo Cocchi-Serristori

Palazzo Cocchi-Serristori is a palace in Piazza Santa Croce, Florence, Italy.It is situated opposite to the church of Santa Croce, in the place where the city's 12th century walls passed. The palace is a reconstruction of a pre-existing medieval edifice , attributed to Giuliano da Sangallo, Baccio...

, rebuilt in the late 15th century by Giuliano da Sangallo

Giuliano da Sangallo

Giuliano da Sangallo was an Italian sculptor, architect and military engineer active during the Italian Renaissance.He was born in Florence. His father Francesco Giamberti was a woodworker and architect, much employed by Cosimo de Medici, and his brother Antonio da Sangallo the Elder and nephew...

, personal architect of Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo de' Medici was an Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent by contemporary Florentines, he was a diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists and poets...

. Today it houses the headquarters of the Quarter 1 of Florence.

Palazzo dell'Antella

On the southern side of the square is the Palazzo dell'Antella

Palazzo dell'Antella

Palazzo dell'Antella is a palace in Piazza Santa Croce, Florence, Italy.Of medieval origins, it was first enlarged in the late 16th century with the addition of a top floor...

, a long palace with facade decorated in the early 17th century under the direction of Giovanni da San Giovanni

Giovanni da San Giovanni

Giovanni da San Giovanni , also known as Giovanni Mannozzi, was an Italian painter of the early Baroque period.-Biography:...

.

Sculptures

In front of the Basilica of Santa Croce is located a marble statue made by Enrico Pazzi dedicated to Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...

, and in the front of the Palazzo Cocchi-Serristori there is a fountain of 19th century.

Events

The rectangular shape of the square houses Calcio Fiorentino

Calcio Fiorentino

Calcio Fiorentino was an early form of football that originated in 16th century Italy. The Piazza Santa Croce of Florence is the cradle of this sport, that became known as giuoco del calcio fiorentino or simply calcio .The official rules of calcio were published for the first time in 1580 by...

 games.

In 2006 Roberto Benigni

Roberto Benigni

Roberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director of film, theatre and television.- Early years :...

 recited the Dante

Dante Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...

's Divine Comedy beside the statue dedicated to him in piazza Santa Croce.

External links

• page at Florence On Line