San Domenico, Bologna

San Domenico, Bologna tickets: which one to buy

The church is free to enter. A small ticket covers the museum in the sacristy and the chapel of the relics, which holds the head of St Dominic in a reliquary and a collection of church plate and manuscripts. Guided tours of Bologna include San Domenico and cost several times that. The basilica is ten minutes south of Piazza Maggiore on its own square, which still has two medieval canopied tombs of law professors standing in the open.

Nothing needs booking. The Dominicans who run the church offer guided visits of the Arca by arrangement, and a coin-operated light illuminates it, which is necessary because the shrine stands in a side chapel and is otherwise in shadow. The Dominicans run a bookshop by the entrance with a good selection on the order's history.

Visiting San Domenico, Bologna: what to see

Dominic Guzman came to Bologna in 1218, held the first chapters of his new order here and died in the church of San Nicolo on this site in 1221. The Dominicans then built the basilica around his grave. His tomb, the Arca di San Domenico, is a marble shrine assembled over three centuries by an extraordinary succession of hands: Nicola Pisano and his workshop carved the reliefs in the 1260s, Niccolo dell'Arca added the canopy and figures in the 1470s, and in 1494 the nineteen-year-old Michelangelo finished the work with three small statues, an angel holding a candlestick, St Petronius and St Proculus.

The church also holds inlaid choir stalls of the 1530s and a Mystic Marriage of St Catherine by Filippino Lippi. Mozart studied counterpoint in the convent in 1770. The choir stalls, inlaid by Fra Damiano da Bergamo between 1528 and 1551, show biblical scenes in wood of different colours and are considered among the finest marquetry in Italy. A chapel off the north aisle holds the tomb of King Enzo of Sardinia, held prisoner in Bologna for twenty-three years until his death in 1272.

San Domenico, Bologna opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily with a break in the middle of the day and a shorter Sunday schedule; the museum keeps tighter hours and is sometimes closed without notice. Bologna is hot and humid in summer and foggy in winter, and the porticoes that cover most of the city's pavements make the walk here pleasant in any weather. The Arca is best seen with the light on and few people in the chapel, which means the first hour after opening.

Dress code is applied. Photography without flash is allowed. Allow forty minutes. Piazza Maggiore, the two towers and the university quarter are all within fifteen minutes on foot. The square outside holds two medieval tombs of law professors on columns, which are the only ones of their kind left standing in the open.