Basilica di San Francesco

The Franciscans arrived in Bologna in 1218 with Bernardo di Quintavalle, one of Saint Francis's first companions. The church was built in the 13th century and is the first example in Italy of French-derived Gothic: you can see this especially from the rear, with the flying buttresses supporting the apse and the two bell towers.

At the foot of the apse, in the open air, stand the medieval mausoleums of the glossators, the great jurists of Bologna's Studium: Accursius, Odofredus and Rolandino de' Romanzi. They are a sign of how much the city owed to its law university.

Inside, the nave is lofty and austere. On the high altar stands the great marble altarpiece commissioned from the Venetian brothers Jacobello and Pierpaolo dalle Masegne and carved by Pierpaolo between 1388 and 1392, an interweaving of spires and saints. Along the walls you'll find funerary monuments, including the tomb of Pope Alexander V, from 1424.

Next to the church, the 14th- and 15th-century convent cloisters are a peaceful corner just steps from Via Ugo Bassi.