Skip-the-Line Tickets to Santa Croce Basilica Complex

Santa Croce holds 250 tombs, Giotto's frescoes, and Brunelleschi's finest chapel. This ticket gets you into all of it without having to wait in the ticket queue.

Getting started

Present your ticket at the entrance on the north side of the basilica in Largo Bargellini. No counter exchange needed. Once inside, the complex is self-guided and yours to explore at your own pace. Plan for one to two hours to cover the main highlights.

What to expect

Basilica di Santa Croce

Florence's largest Franciscan church has been the burial place of the city's greatest minds since the 13th century. Step inside the vast Gothic nave and let the scale of it settle before you start to explore.

• Walk the length of the nave and look down: the floor itself is a mosaic of tomb markers, each one a name from Florence's past.

• Pause in front of the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli, set into the walls of the main nave. Each monument was designed by a different hand and reflects the era it was made in.

• Spend time in the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels, where Giotto painted two fresco cycles in the early 14th century. These are among the earliest surviving examples of naturalistic painting in Western art.

• Cross to the cloister and enter Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel, completed in the 1470s. The proportions are deliberate and precise — it is one of the clearest examples of early Renaissance architecture in Florence.

• Continue through to the Opera Museum, the crypt, and the Medici Chapel. All are covered under your ticket with nothing additional to pay.