Basilica di San Petronio

Basilica Bologna, Italy

The basilica of San Petronio is the main church of Bologna: it dominates the opposite Piazza Maggiore and, despite being largely unfinished, it is the sixth largest church in Europe, after San Pietro in the Vatican, Saint Paul in London, the cathedral of Seville , the Milan Cathedral and the Florence Cathedral. Its imposing dimensions (132 meters long and 60 wide, with a vault height of 44.27 meters, while the facade reaches 51 meters) make it the fourth largest church in Italy (the third, if you excludes St. Peter's, which has been part of the territory of the Vatican City State since 1929). With its volume of 258,000 m³, the basilica is the largest brick-built Gothic church in the world. It has the title of minor basilica. However, it is not the episcopal church of Bologna, a title that belongs to the nearby metropolitan cathedral of San Pietro.