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The burials
Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli are buried in this church
Santa Croce is the burial place of notable Italians, among them Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and the composer Rossini. That is why it is also known as the Temple of the Italian Glories. It is the largest Franciscan church in the world.
Memorials
Dante, Leonardo and Fermi have monuments here but lie elsewhere
Some of the names here are memorials only. Dante is buried in Ravenna, Leonardo da Vinci in France, and the physicist Enrico Fermi in Chicago. Leonardo has a commemorative plaque dating from 1919.
Under plaster
Giotto's frescoes sat under plaster until the 19th century
In 1560 the choir screen was removed and Giorgio Vasari rebuilt the area. The Bardi Chapel's frescoes of St Francis were plastered over at the behest of Cosimo I. The 19th-century restorations removed the plaster and revealed Giotto's work.
The front
The architect of the front worked a Star of David into it
Niccolò Matas, a Jewish architect from Ancona, designed the neo-Gothic marble façade, built from 1857 to 1863, and worked a prominent Star of David into it. Because he was Jewish he was buried under the threshold, and honoured with an inscription.
The flood
In 1966 the Arno flooded the church with mud and heating oil
The water brought mud, pollution and heating oil into the church. The damage to buildings and art was severe and took several decades to repair. Cimabue's Crucifix, badly damaged, is now in the refectory.
Day 3, evening
It comes after Santa Maria Novella.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Santa Croce, Florence, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.