337 Best Sights in Italy

In the Middle Ages, Petralia Sottana was under the dominion of the Ventimiglia family, whose immense wealth left behind many stunning public works and buildings in the town. The concentration of this architecture is focused in and around the central square of Piazza Umberto I, which is dominated by this 16th-century parish church, an impressive cathedral dedicated to the Madonna of the Assumption. The interior is filled with sculptures from the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, including details from Antonello Gangini, a famed Sicilian sculptor who decorated many important churches with his artwork.

On the town's Piazza Duomo, you'll find the parish church of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. The church's dominating structure is in the Catalonian Gothic style, with 12 elaborate columns representing the apostles and two bell towers, one Norman and one from the 18th century. The interior is relatively simple, with notable works including an intricately carved, life-size wooden crucifix by local monk Frate Umile da Petralia (1600--1639) and and the Madonie's largest organ, which dates from 1780. Petralia Soprana's most venerated pious objects, the multicolored wooden statues of the apostles Pietro and Paolo (1767) are paraded through the streets on the saint's feast day, June 29.

Castelbuono's main cathedral, located on the central square of Piazza Margherita, was originally established in 1362; the current church is an elegant Romanesque structure dating to the 16th century that is filled with religious art and paintings. The Gothic Catalan bell tower reflects a similar Andalusian style to Palermo's Duomo and is a prominent feature of the town's landscape. A painted altarpiece, with intricate wooden carved details and portraits of various saints, dominates the church interior. The images on the polyptych are from the 1500s, created by Antonio di Saliba, the nephew of the famous early Renaissance Sicilian master Antonello da Messina.

Dedicated to Cetara's patron saint, the church of San Pietro Apostolo has its origins in 988, its vibrant majolica-tiled cupola soaring over Neoclassical exteriors visible all around Cetara. Set in the Borgo Marinaro fishing quarter and suitably dedicated to the protector of fisherman, the church's bronze doors (inaugurated in 2005) by Battisto Marello (1948–) depict the saint with keys to the Kingdom of Heaven beside brother Sant'Andrea holding fishing nets and writhing fish. See if you can spot Christ overseeing all in the background. Popping into focus among the late Baroque interiors of marble work, statuary, and painting is a wonderful stained glass window added in 1993. Center stage again are the fraternal apostles amid a Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, Cetara skyline, sheep, and busy fishing folk.

This colorful, multi-onion-domed Russian Orthodox church testifies to a long Russian presence on the Italian Riviera. Russian empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Czar Alexander I, built a summerhouse here, and in winter San Remo was a popular destination for other royal Romanovs. The church was consecrated in 1913.

In the heart of Anacapri, the octagonal Baroque church of San Michele, finished in 1719, is best known for its exquisite majolica floor designed by Solimena and executed by the mastro-riggiolaro (master tiler) Chiaiese from Abruzzo. A walkway skirts the depiction of Adam and a duly contrite Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden, but you can get a fine overview from the organ loft, reached by a spiral staircase near the ticket booth.

The 13th-century Collegiata church has three majestic portals, one possibly the work of Giovanni Pisano (circa 1245/48–1318). Behind the high altar are some fine examples of inlaid woodwork by Antonio Barilli (1482–1502). In the floor of the left aisle, look for the tomb slab of Henry of Nassau, a pilgrim knight who died here in 1451.

This Gothic church is dedicated to Asti's patron saint, believed by some to have been decapitated by the Emperor Hadrian on this very spot. San Secondo is also the patron of the city's favorite folklore and sporting event, the annual Palio di Asti, a colorful medieval-style horse race that's similar to Siena's. It's held each year on a Sunday in early September in the vast Campo del Palio to the south of the church.

Originally there was a 6th-century chapel on this site, founded by the Archdeacon Orso, a local saint. Most of the structure was destroyed or hidden when an 11th-century church was erected over it. If you go up the stairs on the left from the main church you can see the frescoes of Christ and the apostles (ask the sacristan, who'll let you in). Take the outside doorway to see the church's crowning glory, its 12th-century cloister, enclosed by some 40 stone columns with carved capitals depicting scenes from the life of St. Orso.

Opposite the Museo del Satiro Danzante, the exuberant Baroque Jesuit College, with its portal framed by hefty male caryatids, was once the center of the Catholic Inquisition in town during the 18th century, charged with rooting out and punishing anything they deemed to be heresy. In 1824, the Jesuits clashed with Sicily’s Bourbon rulers and were kicked out (probably missed by a few). Now, the space is undergoing renovations, and visitors can explore small exhibitions of artworks from the municipal archives. The damaged church of Sant’Ignazio next door is sometimes open; it's an evocative elliptical space, framed by red-gold sandstone and marble columns, and open to the sky. It is occasionally used for open-air concerts and exhibitions.

In 1211 St. Francis founded the Convento di San Francesco, which contains two cloisters and an ornate wooden choir. For a dose of monastic living, you can stay overnight.

The Convento e Chiesa di Santi Jacopo e Lucia is also oddly known as the church of San Domenico, which refers to the fact that the Dominicans took over the church in the 14th century. Most of the interior suffers from too much baroque, but there is a lovely sculpted tomb by Bernardo Rossellino for Giovanni Chellini, a doctor who died in 1461. You'll find it on the right-hand nave close to the high altar.

Arezzo's medieval cathedral at the top of the hill contains a fresco of a tender Maria Maddalena by Piero della Francesca (1420–92); look for it in the north aisle next to the large marble tomb near the organ. Construction of the Duomo began in 1278 but twice came to a halt, and the church wasn't completed until 1510. The ceiling decorations and the stained-glass windows date from the 16th century. The facade, designed by Arezzo's Dante Viviani, was added later (1901–14).

Prato's Romanesque Duomo, reconstructed from 1211, is famous for its Pergamo del Sacro Cingolo (Chapel of the Holy Girdle), which is to the left of its entrance and which enshrines the sash of the Virgin Mary. It is said that the girdle was given to the apostle Thomas by the Virgin Mary when she miraculously appeared after her Assumption into heaven. The Duomo also contains 15th-century frescoes by Prato's most famous son, Fra Filippo Lippi. His scenes from the life of St. Stephen are on the left wall of the Cappella Maggiore (Main Chapel); those from the life of John the Baptist are on the right.

Pisa's cathedral brilliantly utilizes the horizontal marble-stripe motif (borrowed from Moorish architecture) that became common on Tuscan cathedrals. It is famous for the Romanesque panels on the transept door facing the tower that depict scenes from the life of Christ. The beautifully carved 14th-century pulpit is by Giovanni Pisano.

Several reconstructions have left little to admire of the once-Romanesque Duomo. Inside is the Cappella del Santo Chiodo (Chapel of the Holy Nail), built in the 15th century to hold a nail allegedly from the cross upon which Christ was crucified. (Perhaps it inspired the locals to go into the nail-making business, which became another of the town's flourishing industries.)

San Miniato's Duomo, set in a lovely piazza, has a simple yet pretty 13th-century facade, which has been restored. It also has a lovely pulpit designed by Giovanni Duprè, which was executed by his daughter Amalia (1845–1928). The interior is largely uninteresting, though there's a poignant plaque commemorating the 55 citizens who were killed in this church in July 1944 by German occupying forces.

Behind the textbook 13th-century Pisan–Romanesque facade is proof that Volterra counted for something during the Renaissance, when many important Tuscan artists came to decorate the church. Three-dimensional stucco portraits of local saints are on the gold, red, and blue ceiling (1580) designed by Francesco Capriani, including St. Linus, the successor to St. Peter as pope and claimed by the Volterrans to have been born here.

The highlight of the Duomo is the brightly painted, 13th-century, wooden, life-size Deposition in the chapel of the same name. The unusual Cappella dell'Addolorata (Chapel of the Grieved) has two terra-cotta Nativity scenes; the depiction of the arrival of the Magi has a background fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli.

The Cattedrale di Santa Maria, also known as the Duomo, was begun in the 12th century, but major renovation in the 17th century and reconstruction during the mid-1930s have left little of the original medieval church. The tiers of columns on the facade resemble those of medieval Romanesque Pisan churches, but only sections of the central portal, the bell tower, and the two side entrances are from the 13th century. Look for one of the most memorable features inside—the oversize marble pulpit sculpted in the 1300s and divided in half to fit into the church nave; it now lies on either side of the main entrance.

Cortona's cathedral stands on an edge of the city, next to what's left of the Etruscan and medieval walls. Built on the site of a Romanesque church, the present Renaissance church was begun in 1480 and finished in 1507. An arcade along the outside wall was erected in the 16th century. The interior, a mixture of Renaissance and baroque styles, features an exquisite 1664 baroque tabernacle on the high altar by Francesco Mazzuoli.

The highly ornate stone Duomo is Sassari's must-see sight. The cathedral, dedicated to St. Nicolas (of Santa Claus inspiration), took more than half a millennium to build: the foundations were laid in the 12th century, and the Spanish colonial–style facade was completed in the 18th. Of particular interest in the plainer interior are the ribbed Gothic vaults, the 14th-century painting of the Madonna del Bosco on the high altar, and the early-19th-century tomb of Placido Benedetto di Savoia, the uncle of united Italy's first king. Look out, too, for the candelieri displayed in the lateral chapels here—10-foot-tall wooden candlesticks which, festooned with ribbons and flowers, are carried through the streets of Sassari every August 14th by members of the local guilds in one of the city's major festivals.

The unfinished facade of Montepulciano's cathedral doesn't measure up to the beauty of its neighboring palaces. On the inside, however, its Renaissance roots shine through. The high altar has a splendid triptych painted in 1401 by Taddeo di Bartolo (circa 1362–1422), and you can see fragments of the tomb of Bartolomeo Aragazzi, secretary to Pope Martin V, that was sculpted by Michelozzo between 1427 and 1436.

Cosenza's original Duomo, probably built in the middle of the 11th century, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1184. A new cathedral was consecrated in the presence of Emperor Frederick II in 1222. After many Baroque additions, later alterations have restored some of the Provençal Gothic style. Inside, on the left of the main altar, you'll see the lovely monument to Isabella of Aragon, who died after falling from her horse en route to France in 1271.

This 15th-century cathedral was built by the architect Bernardo Rossellino (1409–64) under the influence of Leon Battista Alberti. The travertine facade is divided into three parts, with Renaissance arches under the pope's coat of arms encircled by a wreath of fruit. Inside, the cathedral is simple but richly decorated with Sienese paintings. The building's perfection didn't last long—the first cracks appeared immediately after it was completed, and its foundations have shifted slightly ever since as rain erodes the hillside behind. You can see this effect if you look closely at the base of the first pier as you enter the church and compare it with the last.

A stark medieval interior yields many masterpieces at Fiesole Cathedral (Cathedral of Saint Romulus of Fiesole). In the raised presbytery, the Cappella Salutati was frescoed by 15th-century artist Cosimo Rosselli, but it was his contemporary, sculptor Mino da Fiesole (1430–84), who put the town on the artistic map. The Madonna on the altarpiece and the tomb of Bishop Salutati are fine examples of the artist's work.

This 18th-century Baroque cathedral has a single nave with chapels and paintings on the sides. There are two altarpieces by local artist Francesco Zuccarelli (1702–88), a Rococo landscape artist, a favorite of George III and one of the founders of the British Royal Academy.

Sovana extends from the Rocca Aldobrandesca at the eastern end of town west to this imposing cathedral, built between the 10th and 14th century. The church, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, is Romanesque in style but, atypically, the main entrance is on the left-hand side of the building.

The central Piazza Garibaldi, dating from the 13th to the early 14th century, contains this Romanesque cathedral, with sculptures of the life of patron saint Cerbone above the door.

Severe yet mystical, the Cathedral of San Lorenzo is most famous for being the home of the wedding ring of the Virgin Mary, stolen by the Perugians in 1488 from the nearby town of Chiusi. The ring, kept high up in a red-curtained vault in the chapel immediately to the left of the entrance, is stored under lock and key—15 locks, to be precise—most of the year. It's shown to the public on July 29 (the day it was brought to Perugia) and September 12. The cathedral itself dates from the Middle Ages, and has many additions from the 15th and 16th centuries. The museum displays historical artworks and treasures, plus don't miss walking the underground foundation layers, some of which date to the 7th century BC; book a timeslot online when you buy a ticket.

In a combination of Romanesque and Gothic styles, Sansepolcro's cathedral, though somewhat austere, contains some significant works of art. These include the Volto Santo, a wooden sculpture of the 9th century, which is believed to be the earliest crucifix depicting a completely clothed Christ on the cross. The Ascension of Christ, by Perugino (circa 1448–1523), and its neighbor, an Assumption of the Virgin, by Jacopo Palma the Younger (circa 1550–1628) are also highlights.