Basilica di San Giacomo Maggiore

The church was built between 1267 and 1315 by the Hermit Friars of St Augustine, in Piazza Rossini, along what is now Via Zamboni, the university street. Outside it is Romanesque, with an elegant Renaissance portico along the side; inside is a single large luminous nave, renovated at the end of the 15th century.

In the 15th century it was the church of the Bentivoglio, the family who ruled Bologna until 1506. The Cappella Bentivoglio, one of the most important works of the early Renaissance in the city, preserves the altarpiece by Francesco Francia, from around 1494, and the frescoes by Lorenzo Costa with the Triumphs of Death and Fame and the portrait of the family of Giovanni II Bentivoglio.

Opposite the chapel is the funerary monument to Anton Galeazzo Bentivoglio, sculpted in 1438 by Jacopo della Quercia. In the 16th century the Cappella Poggi was added, designed by Pellegrino Tibaldi for Cardinal Giovanni Poggi.

From the portico you enter the Oratorio di Santa Cecilia, frescoed between 1504 and 1506 with the stories of the saint and her husband Valeriano by the finest Bolognese painters of the time, including Francesco Francia, Lorenzo Costa and Amico Aspertini. The bell tower, from 1471, is about 55 metres high.