Basilica di San Miniato

This guide to Basilica di San Miniato in Florence begins with the legend of the martyr Miniato, beheaded around the year 250 during a Roman persecution and said to have carried his own head up this hill to die where he had lived as a hermit. It traces the basilica's construction after the year 1013 under Bishop Alibrando, backed by the German emperor Henry the Second, and then jumps to 1529, when an army laid siege to the city and the hilltop's bell tower became an artillery target. Look at the green-and-white marble pattern on the facade, a design Florence copied across the city for centuries.