The story of San Petronio Basilica

Look at the facade in front of you: it has never been finished. Construction began in 1390, when the city decided to build a great civic temple to its patron, Saint Petronius, a fifth-century bishop of Bologna. To make room, at least eight churches and towers were demolished.

The work dragged on for centuries, and was even delayed when Cardinal Baldassarre Cossa sold the building materials and kept the money. In 1514 an ambitious plan for a huge dome was started, but after the first pillars were raised it was halted; legend says Pope Pius IV stopped this megalomaniac dream and pushed for the Archiginnasio instead. Still, the basilica is enormous: 132 metres long, 66 wide and 47 tall.

Inside are twenty-two side chapels, and in one of them, in 1530, Emperor Charles V was crowned by Pope Clement VII. Remarkably, the church belonged to the city until 1929, and was only consecrated in 1954.