Six centuries of brick, marble and sunlight on the city’s great square.
Photo: Arno Senoner · Unsplash License · source
Why go
The Basilica di San Petronio is where Bologna keeps its soul. Leave the bright bustle of Piazza Maggiore, push through the heavy wooden door, and the noise of the city falls away under brick piers and pale Gothic vaults, in a nave 132 metres long. People light candles, students sit in silence, and the light changes by the minute.
Ordered by the city council in 1388 as a civic temple, it was meant to outgrow St Peter’s and was never finished: its front is still half marble, half bare brick. Inside, a sunbeam reaches Cassini’s meridian at noon and the Bolognini Chapel glows with six-hundred-year-old colour. Entry is free; allow 45 minutes, or an hour for art lovers.
Gallery
Photo: Peter Vercoelen · Pexels License · source
Photo © Basilica di San Petronio
Photo: Kristijan Arsov · Unsplash License · source
Photo: Dimitris Iosifidis · Unsplash License · source
Photo: Mihai Vlasceanu · Pexels License · source
Highlights
Four things not to miss, from a sunbeam that tells the time to a chapel painted six centuries ago.
01
In 1655 the astronomer Gian Domenico Cassini traced a 67-metre meridian line diagonally across the left aisle. Sunlight enters a small hole in the fourth vault, reaches the floor about an hour before noon, then creeps towards the line, which it meets at exactly local solar noon.
Photo © Basilica di San Petronio
02
The Chapel of the Magi takes its other name from the Bolognini family, whose arms mark its red Verona marble screen of about 1400. It is the only chapel that keeps its original early-1400s decoration, including Jacopo di Paolo’s altarpiece of the Magi and stained glass made in 1404–06.
Photo © Basilica di San Petronio
03
San Petronio’s front tells the story of a city that ran out of money and time: marble covers only the lower band, leaving rough brick above. At its centre stands the Porta Magna, commissioned from Jacopo della Quercia in 1425 and still unfinished when he died in 1438.
Photo: Arno Senoner · Unsplash License · source
04
Construction began in 1390 and ran until 1663, paid for entirely with public money. Walk the 132-metre nave past 22 square chapels of equal size, each closed by marble screens or iron gates, and find the Chapel of Saint Petronius, which keeps the patron saint’s relics.
Photo: Chiara Guercio · Unsplash License · source
Practical information
Piazza Maggiore, 40124 Bologna, Italy
Step-free entrance with a ramp on Via de’ Pignattari
Open in Google MapsHours from the official website:
| Basilica | Every day | 10:00–18:00Last entry 17:50 |
|---|---|---|
| Chapel of the Magi | Every day | 10:00–17:30Last entry 17:15 |
| Museum | Every day | 10:00–17:30Last entry 17:15 |
No afternoon guided tours on 4 October (Feast of Saint Petronius), 8 December and 31 December.
| Basilica, meridian line and museum | Free |
|---|---|
| Chapel of the Magi (Bolognini) + chapels of San Sebastiano and San Vincenzo Ferrer | €5Reduced €3 · buy on site |
| Other chapels and the presbytery | €3 eachRequest by email at least one week ahead |
| School and youth groups | €2 per personFrom 11:40 · booking and licensed guide required |
Hours can change for services and events.
Getting there
The basilica fills the south side of Piazza Maggiore, in the pedestrian heart of Bologna. From Bologna Centrale station allow about 20 minutes on foot, straight down Via dell’Indipendenza to the square.
TPER city buses serve the edge of the historic centre. Plan your route with the TPER journey planner and buy tickets in TPER’s official ROGER app.
The historic centre is a camera-controlled limited-traffic zone (ZTL), and Piazza Maggiore is pedestrian. Leave the car in a car park outside the centre and walk in, or ask your hotel how access works.
Use the side entrance with a ramp on Via de’ Pignattari. Suitcases and large luggage are not allowed inside the basilica, so leave your bags at the hotel before you visit.
Insider tips
School and youth groups are admitted only from 11:40, so the first hour and a half after opening is usually the calmest time to walk the nave in near silence.
On a sunny day, arrive about an hour before local noon, around 11:00–11:30 in winter or 12:00–12:30 in summer time, and watch the disc of light creep towards the line.
Weekday Mass is at 11:00 in the Chapel of the Santissimo Sacramento, and on Sundays at 10:00 and 11:30. Keep voices low and avoid that chapel while it is in use.
The Archiginnasio, Bologna’s old university palace, stands right behind the basilica on Piazza Galvani. See its wooden anatomical theatre, then walk two minutes to the Quadrilatero for a long lunch.
Around the square
San Petronio stands on Piazza Maggiore. Everything below is a short walk from the square.
Via Monte Grappa 2/b
Family restaurant since 1948, where the tortellini are still folded by hand.
Discover more →Photo © Da Nello al Montegrappa
Via Volturno 5
Historic dining room since 1909: tortellini in brodo and the meat trolley.
Discover more →Photo © Ristorante Diana
Via della Braina 9
Chef Mario Ferrara’s seasonal, vegetable-led cooking in a seventeenth-century former Bologna convent.
Discover more →Photo © Scacco Matto
Via de’ Pignattari 11 · 1 min walk
Palazzo hotel beside San Petronio
Medieval palazzo beside San Petronio; some rooms look onto its Gothic windows.
Via Drapperie 5 · 2 min walk
Three-star hotel in the Quadrilatero
Three-star palazzo hotel in the Quadrilatero, among delis, bakeries and fruit stalls.
Holiplanet selection · Centro Storico
Hotels, apartments and residences
Our full shortlist of Bologna stays, from palazzo hotels to city apartments.
Photos — Art Hotel Commercianti: © Art Hotel Commercianti · Albergo delle Drapperie: © Albergo delle Drapperie
Via del Rondone 2 · APCOA · About 12 min walk
€3.00 an hour (first 3 hours) · max €23 a day
Underground car park with 540 spaces, step-free, open 24 hours a day.
Piazza VIII Agosto 33 · APCOA · About 13 min walk
€3.30 an hour (first 3 hours) · max €25 a day
Underground car park beside the Montagnola, step-free, open 24 hours a day.
Via Capo di Lucca 44 · APCOA · About 18 min walk
From €2.40 the first hour · max €20 a day
Underground car park with 265 spaces near Piazza XX Settembre; cash only.
Piazza Maggiore sits inside the historic centre’s camera-controlled limited-traffic zone (ZTL): plan your route to the car park before you drive in.
Piazza Galvani, behind San Petronio · 2 min walk
Official CAT taxi rank
The closest rank to the basilica, beside the Archiginnasio on Piazza Galvani.
Near Piazza del Nettuno · 2 min walk
Official CAT taxi rank
North side of the square, by the Neptune Fountain and Via Rizzoli.
CoTaBo 051 372727 · CAT 051 4590 · 24 hours a day
Radio taxi and official apps
Call a radio taxi any time, or book in the official apps.
Piazza Maggiore · On the doorstep
Free · open all day
Bologna’s open-air living room, with Giambologna’s bronze Neptune standing right beside it.
Piazza Maggiore 6 · 1 min walk
Tower and collections €10
Town hall, art collections and a Clock Tower climb above red roofs.
Piazza di Porta Ravegnana · 5 min walk
Free to see from the street
The Asinelli and the leaning Garisenda, the emblems of medieval Bologna’s skyline.
Photos — Piazza Maggiore & the Neptune Fountain: Photo: Oleksandr · Unsplash License · Palazzo d’Accursio & the Clock Tower: Photo: Michael Shtern · Unsplash License · The Two Towers: Photo: Sterling Lanier · Unsplash License
Questions
The first plan imagined a vast Latin-cross church with a dome and four bell towers, bigger even than St Peter’s in Rome. Technical and economic difficulties and changing political times stopped the work, so the façade stayed half-clad.
It is Bologna’s great civic church, 132 metres long and dedicated to the city’s patron saint. Charles V was crowned Holy Roman Emperor here in 1530, and it holds Cassini’s 67-metre meridian line and the Bolognini Chapel.
Yes. The basilica, the meridian line and the museum are free. The Chapel of the Magi (Bolognini), together with the chapels of San Sebastiano and San Vincenzo Ferrer, costs €5, or €3 reduced, paid on site.
The basilica is open every day from 10:00 to 18:00, with last entry at 17:50. The Chapel of the Magi and the museum are open daily from 10:00 to 17:30, with last entry at 17:15.
No. After the restoration works, the basilica closed its panoramic terrace permanently. For a view over the red roofs near Piazza Maggiore, book a slot to climb the Clock Tower of Palazzo d’Accursio instead.
Yes. Clothing must suit a place of worship: no tank tops, short skirts, see-through clothes or low necklines. Caps and hats must come off inside, and phone or video calls are not allowed.
