Basilica di San Domenico

Dominic of Guzmán, the founder of the Order of Preachers, arrived in Bologna in January 1218 and died here on 6 August 1221. His friars built the church to house his remains, and the city became one of the centres of the Dominican order in Europe. Today's basilica preserves its thirteenth-century layout, with many eighteenth-century alterations.

In the saint's chapel stands the Arca di San Domenico, the marble tomb that is a small museum of Italian sculpture. The sarcophagus was carved by Nicola Pisano and his workshop in the thirteenth century; Niccolò da Bari created the canopy between 1469 and 1473, so beautifully that he has been called Niccolò dell'Arca ever since.

When Niccolò died, the work was unfinished. In 1494 the young Michelangelo Buonarroti arrived in Bologna, having fled from Florence, and sculpted three statuettes: St Petronius, St Proculus and the angel holding the candlestick on the right. Above the ark, in the apse of the chapel, Guido Reni painted the Gloria di San Domenico.

Don't miss the wooden choir inlaid by Fra Damiano da Bergamo, considered a Renaissance masterpiece, and the chapel of the Rosary, where Guido Reni and Elisabetta Sirani are buried. Outside, the square is enclosed by two mediaeval tombs of jurists on columns.