iazza called
Santa Croce, where formerly stood a small church belonging to the order
of the Franciscan monks. They had resolved to embellish and enlarge
their church, and Cardinal Matteo D'Acquasparta, general of the
Franciscan Order, proclaimed an indulgence to all contributors toward
the undertaking. The church was far enough advanced in 1320 for services
to be held in it, tho the facade was then, as until a very recent period
it remained, a plain brick wall, without facing or any other ornament.
Santa Croce was not singular in this respect, for San Lorenzo and many
other Florentine churches have never been decorated externally.

In 1442 Cardinal Bessarion, the founder of St. Mark's Library at Venice,
was delegated to perform the ceremony of consecration. Donatello and
Ghiberti, incomplete as was the facade, executed some statues and a
stained-glass window for it, but it is only within the last few years
that the city of Florence completed the work, leaving untouched the
grand piazza which had been the scene of so many fetes and intestine
quarrels, and upon which is now erected a statue to Dante. The facade of
Santa Croce was completed in 1863. The expense was principally borne by
Mr. Francis Sloane, an Englishman.

The interior is striking from its vast size, the church being built in
the shape of a Latin cross with nave, aisles, and transepts, each of the
seven pointed arches being supported on the octagonal column. Opposite
the front entrance is the high altar, while all around the walls and
between the side altars--erected in 1557 by Vasari by order of Cosimo
I.--are the monuments of the illustrious dead. First of all on the left
there is Domenico Sestini, a celebrated numismatist, whose bust was
carved by Pozzetti. While in the first chapel on the right is the tomb
of Michael Angelo, who died at Rome on the 17th of February, 1564; the
monument was designed by Vasari, the bust was executed by Battista
Lorenzo. Two contemporary sculptors, Valerio Cioli and Giovanni
Dell'Opera, did the allegories of Sculpture and Architecture, the
frescoes around the monument being by Battista Naldini. A nobler tomb
might well have been raised to the memory of Michael Angelo. The body
was deposited in the church on the 12th of March, 1564, and lay in
state, for the people of Florence to come and pay him the last tribute
of respect.

The next tomb is only commemorative, for it does not contain the ashes
of Dante, in whose honor it