Camposanto Monumentale

Founded in 1277 to gather the graves scattered around the Cathedral, the Camposanto is a long marble cloister around a lawn; legend says it was built on soil brought back from Golgotha. In the 14th century Francesco Traini and Buffalmacco painted its walls with scenes of life and death, among them the Triumph of Death and the Last Judgement, and later artists including Benozzo Gozzoli added Old Testament stories. In the early 1800s it became one of Europe's first public museums, filled with Roman sarcophagi and inscriptions.

On 27 July 1944, during the Second World War, an Allied raid started a fire that burned for three days and ruined much of the painting. Restorers detached what survived, and the work has gone on ever since: the Triumph of Death went back to its original place on 6 June 2018. After the bustle of the lawn, the quiet galleries are a good place to slow down.