Attraction Type: Church

The shrine was created to honor the spirits — or “kami” in Japanese — of the soldiers who died in the Boshin War of 1868-9.

The crown jewel of Florence is the Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore. The glorious cathedral dwarfs most other buildings in this city of about 356,000. Construction started in 1296 and was completed in 1436. Filippo Brunelleschi designed the famed dome. The building’s façade, generally described as a “neo-gothic façade of white, red and green marble,” is relatively new. It was completed in 1887 when the church was 591 years old.

Santa Maria Novella dates to the mid 13th century. A pair of Dominican friars, Fra Sisto da Firenze and Fra Ristoro da Campi, designed the church. It is known as Novella, which means “new” because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne. Leon Battista Alberti completed the church’s façade in 1470. Admittedly, it would be nearly impossible to list every church in Florence that is worth seeing,