Church
Basilica di San Francesco
Soaring French Gothic basilica repurposed as a Napoleonic customs house for nearly a century.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Basilica di San Francesco in Bologna follows what happened after Napoleon's troops broke into the church in seventeen ninety-six and put it to a very different use. You'll hear how the building changed hands over the following decades, before the Franciscans finally got it back. Listen for the marble altarpiece behind the high altar, carved by the Venetian dalle Masegne brothers, which lived through the whole ordeal.
This audio guide was created using AI.