Florence Churches

For the art history, pay for Santa Maria Novella and the Brancacci Chapel: Masaccio's Trinity and his Carmine frescoes are the two rooms where fifteenth-century painting changes, and between them they cost €22.50 and about ninety minutes. For the names everyone knows, Santa Croce — Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and Dante's empty tomb, in fifty minutes by the church's own reckoning.

For Michelangelo specifically, the Medici Chapels hold the New Sacristy he designed and carved; the wooden crucifix in Santo Spirito's €2 sacristy route is attributed to him as a young man. For an hour that costs nothing, San Miniato al Monte at 18:00 on a weekday: Mass and then vespers, both in Latin with Gregorian chant, in a building begun in 1018.

For quiet, Santo Spirito on a weekday morning and San Miniato after 18:00 are the two places in this list where you can hear the building. The cathedral nave, free and central, is the busiest room of the ten. Where each of these fits in a day is worked out on the three-day Florence itinerary.

Three never charge: the cathedral nave Monday to Saturday, San Miniato al Monte, and Santo Spirito, where only the €2 museum route through the sacristy is paid. The cathedral and Santa Maria Novella are also open free for personal prayer and during services at any time — but that is prayer, not a visit: no cloisters, no Spanish Chapel, no wandering with a camera.

The free days do not line up, which is the trap. The state-run Medici Chapels follow the national scheme — the first Sunday of every month, plus 25 April and 4 November — and so does Orsanmichele. Santa Croce runs its own list instead, and in 2026 it falls on 15 August, 14 September, 26–27 September, 4 October, 8 November, 20 December and 26 December, with tickets on site only and last entry pulled back to 16:30. A free first Sunday at the Uffizi is an ordinary paying day at Santa Croce.

The Firenzecard costs €85 (about $99) for 72 hours and covers Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, the Brancacci Chapel, Orsanmichele and the Medici Chapels with no reservation — but not the Duomo complex, which sits outside the circuit entirely. The card pays off when the museums are doing the work, and the Firenzecard page does that arithmetic. For anyone who would rather hand the scheduling puzzle to someone else, the churches of Florence are a natural focus of florence guided tours, and comparing tours in Florence shows which ones bundle the big basilicas with the timed museums.

• Always free: cathedral nave, San Miniato al Monte, Santo Spirito (sacristy route €2)
• First Sunday of the month, free: Medici Chapels, Orsanmichele
• Santa Croce's own 2026 free days: 15 August, 14 September, 26–27 September, 4 October, 8 November, 20 December, 26 December
• Firenzecard €85: five of these ten, and no Duomo

The rule that gets enforced is the cathedral's: no bare shoulders, no legs uncovered above the knee, no flip-flops, checked at the door of both the cathedral and the Baptistery. Santa Croce covers shoulders and legs and hands out free disposable robes to anyone who arrives unprepared, which in August is a steady stream. Santo Spirito asks for "appropriate dress" and prohibits photography outright. The rest state nothing — carry a light scarf and the question never comes up.

Sunday is the other rule, and it is a scheduling one. The cathedral closes to visitors all day for worship, San Lorenzo shuts, Santa Croce opens at 14:00, Santa Maria Novella at 13:00 and the Brancacci at 13:00. San Miniato is the exception that opens earlier on Sunday, at 08:15, because its Masses start then. If your one free day in Florence is a Sunday, do the museums and give the churches the afternoon — the Monday and Sunday opening map for the whole city sets out which days close what.

One more practical rule: luggage. The Duomo complex will not let you in with bags and sends you to the storage at Piazza Duomo 38/r. The other churches state nothing about bag size, which is not the same as promising to admit a suitcase.

Very little of this list needs planning, which is the good news after the Uffizi and the Accademia. Only the Baptistery is genuinely timed, and only because it arrives inside a Duomo pass whose slot is fixed on the first monument you book and cannot be changed afterwards — the three passes are compared on the Duomo tickets page.

The Brancacci Chapel is not timed but is capped: ten people at a time, thirty minutes each, and the museum itself strongly recommends booking. The Brancacci ticket with audio guide books it. At Santa Croce the guided visit with fast-track entry takes you past the desk queue. At the Medici Chapels a reserved entry fixes the time, and a reservation is compulsory for the Michelangelo secret-room combination. Everything else — the cathedral nave, Santa Maria Novella, San Lorenzo, San Miniato, Santo Spirito, Orsanmichele — takes a walk-up ticket or no ticket at all.

Groups have their own rules: Santa Maria Novella caps them at twenty-five with a guide and requires headsets from six people up, and Santa Croce gives a reduced rate from fifteen.