Santa Croce is one of the six sestieri of Venice. It occupies the north west part of the main islands, and can be divided into two areas: the eastern area being largely mediaeval, and the western - including the main port and the Tronchetto - mostly lying on land only created in the twentieth century.
The district includes the Piazzale Roma, home to Venice's bus station and car parks, and around which is the only area of the city in which cars can travel. The tourist attractions lie mostly in the eastern part of the quarter, and include the Church of San Nicolo da Tolentino, the Fondaco dei Turchi, the Church of San Giacomo dell'Orio, the Centre for the History of Costume, the Patrician Palace and Ca'Corner della Regina.
SantaCroce is planned as an Egyptian cross, with an open timber roof; there are many tomb slabs set into the pavement.
It is significant that SantaCroce, which was to become the resting-place of so many great Italians, has the first truly renaissance funerary monument: the tomb of Leonardo Bruni, Chancellor of the Republic, sculpted by Bernardo Rossellino (1444).
Ugo Foscolo, who died in England, was reburied here in 1871; in his celebrated Sepolcri he had written of the SantaCroce tombs as ‘urns of the strong, that kindle strong souls to great deeds’, and had thereby given rise to the secular view of the basilica as a Pantheon of civic memories.
The Basilica di SantaCroce (Basilica of the Holy Cross) is the principal Franciscan church of Florence, Italy, and a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic Church.
It is situated on the Piazza SantaCroce, to the east of the Duomo.
The Museo dell'Opera di SantaCroce is housed mainly in the refectory, also off the cloister.
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