The story
On 4 November 1966 the Arno burst its banks, and in the streets around Santa Croce, the great Franciscan church on the east side of Florence's centre, the water rose to almost six metres. In the old refectory it engulfed Cimabue's painted Crucifix from the 1280s, which lost up to 60 percent of its paint. Giorgio Vasari's Last Supper, five wooden panels from 1546, was soaked in mud and heating oil. Saving it took 50 years, and it was unveiled again in November 2016. Bronzino's Descent into Limbo, a crowded altarpiece of 1552, was damaged too and is restored. Since 2014 the most vulnerable works have been hung above the flood line, and the Crucifix now hangs in the sacristy.
Most visitors come for the church itself, begun in 1294. It holds the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli, and a monument to Dante, who is buried in Ravenna, where he died in exile. In two chapels to the right of the high altar Giotto painted frescoes around the 1320s. The Bardi chapel tells the life of Saint Francis, founder of the friars who built the church, and the Peruzzi chapel next door shows the two Saints John.
Michelangelo's tomb, in the right aisle, was designed by Vasari, the painter and biographer who had been his friend.
