The Most Beautiful Cathedrals in Italy
15 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful cathedrals in Italy are Milan Cathedral, Siena Cathedral and Otranto Cathedral. The list covers 15 cathedrals. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Italy has no single cathedral style because every city built its duomo in its own tradition. Pisa and Apulia developed a Romanesque of arcaded marble facades, Norman Sicily mixed Byzantine mosaics with Arab craftsmanship, Tuscany favoured striped marble and painted interiors, and Venice took its domes and gold from Constantinople. Italian Gothic stayed broad and colourful rather than vertical, and the Renaissance began with a cathedral dome.
Milan Cathedral is the great exception, a forest of Gothic spires in white marble. Florence Cathedral is crowned by Brunelleschi's dome, the largest masonry dome ever built, and Siena Cathedral and Orvieto Cathedral face their squares with striped marble and glittering mosaic facades. St Mark's Basilica in Venice, the city's cathedral since 1807, is lined with gold-ground mosaics.
The south shows older and more mixed traditions. Monreale Cathedral above Palermo is covered in Byzantine mosaics around a vast Christ Pantocrator, Amalfi Cathedral rises at the top of a long stairway with a striped facade, and Trani Cathedral stands in pale stone at the edge of the sea. Otranto Cathedral is paved with a twelfth-century mosaic of the Tree of Life, the Cathedral of Syracuse still uses the Doric columns of a Greek temple to Athena, and in Rome the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran is the cathedral of the Pope himself. In the north-east, the basilica at Aquileia keeps one of the largest early Christian mosaic floors.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Milan Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 2 | Siena Cathedral | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 3 | Otranto Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 4 | St Mark's Basilica | Cathedral | |
| 5 | Modena Cathedral | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 6 | Pisa Cathedral | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 7 | Cathedral of Syracuse | Cathedral | |
| 8 | Archbasilica of St. John Lateran | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 9 | Amalfi Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 10 | Orvieto Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 11 | Florence Cathedral | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 12 | Trani Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 13 | Basilica of Our Lady of the Assumption, St. Hermagoras and St. Fortunatus | Cathedral | |
| 14 | Cattedrale di Monreale | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 15 | Torcello Cathedral | Cathedral |
01 Milan Cathedral
Duomo di Milano
Italy · 1.3 km from Milan45.464° N 9.191° E
Jakub Hałun · CC BY-SA 4.0 Inside, look for the sixteenth-century statue of Saint Bartholomew by Marco d'Agrate, showing the flayed apostle wearing his own skin like a stole; the Trivulzio candelabrum in the transept, with a twelfth-century bronze base; and the tomb of Gian Giacomo Medici by Leone Leoni. A red light high in the apse marks where a nail said to be from the Crucifixion is kept, brought down once a year for the Rite of the Nivola. The most memorable experience, though, is the roof: visitors can walk among the pinnacles, flying buttresses and statues that are invisible from the ground. Mark Twain, who climbed up in 1867, devoted a chapter of The Innocents Abroad to the building.
Did you know? During the Second World War the Madonnina was wrapped in cloth so that her gleam could not serve as a landmark for Allied bombers.
02 Siena Cathedral
Duomo di Siena
Italy · 1.7 km from Siena43.318° N 11.329° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Anajim from Pixabay The third highlight is the Piccolomini Library, commissioned in 1492 by Cardinal Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, later Pope Pius III, to hold the books of his uncle Pope Pius II; much of the collection is lost, but it still keeps richly illuminated psalters of the 1460s and 1470s. Duccio's Maestà, once the high altarpiece, is now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo next door, and the round window he designed for the choir, one of the earliest surviving works of Italian stained glass, has been replaced in the church by a replica. Bernini added the gilded lantern on the dome. The cathedral is the centre of the Historic Centre of Siena UNESCO site.
Did you know? The young Michelangelo carved four saints for the Piccolomini altar between 1501 and 1504, including Peter, Paul and Pius.
03 Otranto Cathedral
Cattedrale di Otranto
Italy · 37.5 km from Lecce40.146° N 18.491° E
User:MatthiasKabel · CC BY 2.5 The building also carries the memory of the darkest episode in the town's history. In August 1480 an Ottoman force took Otranto; townspeople and clergy who had sheltered in the cathedral were killed, the church was turned into a mosque, and its frescoes were destroyed. After the town was recovered in 1481 the church was rebuilt, and the large Gothic rose window was set into the west front. The Chapel of the Martyrs at the end of the right aisle holds, in seven glass-fronted cases, the bones of the citizens executed after refusing to give up their faith; by tradition they numbered about eight hundred.
Did you know? Besides biblical scenes, the pavement shows Diana the huntress, Hercules, monkeys, snakes and sea monsters along the Tree of Life.
04 St Mark's Basilica
Basilica di San Marco
Italy · 0.6 km from Venice45.434° N 12.340° E
Image by NakNakNak from Pixabay Inside, the domes, vaults and upper walls are covered with gold-ground mosaics made over about eight centuries, some purely Byzantine, others designed from drawings by Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Uccello and other Renaissance painters. In the dim light the gold seems to glow on its own. Behind the high altar, where St Mark's relics have rested since 1835, is the Pala d'Oro, a golden altarpiece ordered from Constantinople in 1102 and installed in 1105. Around the chancel, bronze reliefs tell the life and miracles of St Mark, and the ciborium over the altar rests on four carved columns whose age is still debated, with dates proposed from 6th-century Byzantium to 13th-century Venice.
Did you know? The famous horses are not true bronze but at least 96.67 percent copper, and their date is disputed, from Classical Greece to the 2nd or 3rd century AD.
05 Modena Cathedral
Duomo di Modena
Italy · 0.6 km from Modena44.646° N 10.925° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Ermaf62 from Pixabay Inside, the crypt still displays the saint's remains. The marble parapet between the nave and the crypt, carved by Anselmo da Campione with the Passion and the Last Supper, and a pulpit by Arrigo da Campione are the highlights, together with two famous terracotta nativity groups: Guido Mazzoni's of 1480 in the crypt and Antonio Begarelli's of 1527. The funeral of Modena's most famous son, the tenor Luciano Pavarotti, was held here.
06 Pisa Cathedral
Duomo di Pisa
Italy · 0.5 km from Pisa43.723° N 10.396° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Makalu from Pixabay Three works justify a long look. The pulpit by Giovanni Pisano, carved between 1302 and 1310, is one of the masterpieces of Italian Gothic sculpture: curved panels crowded with figures, held up by statues of the Virtues instead of plain columns. It was dismantled after the fire and only reassembled in 1926, not quite in its original arrangement. In the apse, the great mosaic of Christ enthroned includes the head of St John by Cimabue, dated 1302 — his last documented work.
07 Cathedral of Syracuse
Duomo di Siracusa
Italy · 1.3 km from Syracuse37.059° N 15.294° E
pjt56 --- · CC BY-SA 3.0 The great earthquake of 1693 brought down the old front, and between 1725 and 1753 Andrea Palma gave the cathedral the High Sicilian Baroque façade that now presides over Piazza del Duomo, with a double order of Corinthian columns and statues by Ignazio Marabitti. Inside, the rough ancient stonework sits beside Baroque chapels, a marble baptismal font of the 12th–13th century, a ciborium by Luigi Vanvitelli and a Madonna carved by Antonello Gagini in 1512. The church keeps relics of Saint Lucy, patron of Syracuse. Ortygia and the city's ancient quarters form part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Syracuse and the Rocky Necropolis of Pantalica, inscribed in 2005.
Did you know? Excavations by Paolo Orsi in 1907–1910 uncovered an altar from the 8th century BC and traces of an earlier 6th-century BC temple.
08 Archbasilica of St. John Lateran
Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano
Italy · 2.5 km from Rome41.886° N 12.506° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
NikonZ7II · CC BY-SA 4.0 Older layers survive beneath the Baroque. The floor is medieval Cosmatesque inlay, the Gothic ciborium over the high altar dates from 1369, and the 13th-century cloister, surrounded by columns of inlaid marble, is the work of the Vassalletto family and the Cosmati. A 4th-century statue of Constantine stands in the portico. Outside, on the square, rises the Lateran Obelisk, commissioned by the pharaoh Thutmose III for Karnak and the largest standing ancient Egyptian obelisk in the world. The basilica and its properties are part of the Historic Centre of Rome World Heritage Site.
Did you know? Popes lived in the neighbouring Lateran Palace for roughly a thousand years, until the papacy moved to Avignon in 1309, and five ecumenical councils met there.
09 Amalfi Cathedral
Duomo di Amalfi
Italy · 15 km from Salerno40.634° N 14.603° E
Luca Aless · CC BY-SA 3.0 Inside, the nave was given a Baroque dress in the 18th century, with a coffered ceiling of 1702 and paintings by Andrea dell'Asta; the high altar incorporates the sarcophagus of Peter of Capua, who died in 1214, and two Egyptian granite columns hold up the triumphal arch. Amalfi lies at the mouth of a deep ravine below cliffs on the Gulf of Salerno. Between 839 and about 1200 it was the capital of a maritime republic that traded across the Mediterranean and rivalled Pisa and Genoa, and today it gives its name to the Amalfi Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Did you know? Saint Andrew's relics were moved into the newly completed crypt in 1208, two years after reaching Amalfi.
10 Orvieto Cathedral
Duomo di Orvieto
Italy42.717° N 12.113° E
Image by sferrario1968 from Pixabay Smaller treasures reward a slow walk: a Madonna and Child by Gentile da Fabriano from 1425, a Pietà carved by Ippolito Scalza in 1579, Gothic choir stalls begun in 1329, and a tall stained-glass window in the apse from the 1330s. And step back out into the square at least twice, in different light: the gold of the mosaics changes with every hour.
Did you know? The façade's last pinnacles came after the official completion: the right one in 1590, the left in 1605–1607.
11 Florence Cathedral
Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore
Italy · 1 km from Florence43.773° N 11.257° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by spalla67 from Pixabay Below the nave, excavations between 1965 and 1974 uncovered Roman houses and the remains of Santa Reparata, the older cathedral this one replaced; part of that crypt is open, and near its entrance lies Brunelleschi's own plain tomb. The cathedral forms a single ensemble with Giotto's Campanile and the Baptistery on Piazza del Duomo, inside the UNESCO-listed historic centre of Florence.
Did you know? Michelangelo's David was originally meant for one of the cathedral's buttresses, but the six-ton statue proved far too heavy to be raised there.
12 Trani Cathedral
Cattedrale di Trani
Italy · 13.1 km from Barletta41.282° N 16.419° E
Image by Jack78 from Pixabay Because the church was built over the older one, its floor lies some 5 m above the ground outside. The upper church has a nave and two aisles divided by paired columns that carry women's galleries, under bare timber trusses. Fragments of a 12th-century floor mosaic, inspired by the one at Otranto, survive near the altar, including Alexander the Great carried skyward by griffins and Adam and Eve. Beneath lie two crypts, one dedicated to Nicholas and holding his relics, the other to Mary, and lower still, below sea level, the frescoed hypogeum of Saint Leucius.
Did you know? A restoration in 1939–1942, directed by Alfredo Barbacci, removed most later additions and left the interior strikingly bare.
13 Basilica of Our Lady of the Assumption, St. Hermagoras and St. Fortunatus
Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo e Santi Ermagora e Fortunato
Italy · 34.9 km from Udine45.770° N 13.371° E
Image by marco2204 from Pixabay Aquileia itself was founded as a Roman colony in 181 BC and grew into one of the great cities of the empire and a centre of early Christianity, until Attila's Huns destroyed it in 452. The excavated Roman town and the basilica together form a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1998.
Did you know? A small column between the cock and the tortoise carries two barely visible symbols, an infinity sign and three Cs, read as references to the Trinity and the cross.
More about Basilica of Our Lady of the Assumption, St. Hermagoras and St. Fortunatus →
14 Cattedrale di Monreale
Duomo di Monreale
Italy · 7 km from Palermo38.082° N 13.292° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by whoefle from Pixabay Next door, the cloister of the former abbey, completed around 1200, is a separate ticketed visit and should not be missed. More than two hundred pairs of slender columns carry pointed arches. Many of the shafts are inlaid with spirals and zigzags of coloured and gilded glass, and no two carved capitals are alike, with foliage, biblical scenes and allegories. In one corner, a small enclosure holds the monks' marble fountain.
Did you know? The cathedral was consecrated only on 25 April 1267, about 95 years after work began, in the presence of Pope Clement IV.
15 Torcello Cathedral
Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta
Italy · 9.3 km from Venice45.498° N 12.419° E
Emmanuel Cruvelier · Public domain The mosaics were made by Byzantine-trained craftsmen in the 11th and 12th centuries. In the main apse a slender standing Virgin holding the Child, of the Hodegetria type, floats alone against a field of gold above a row of apostles. Opposite, the west wall unfolds in tiers: the Crucifixion, the Descent into Limbo and, across the four lower registers, a vast Last Judgement with the weighing of souls, the blessed and the torments of the damned.
Did you know? The marble choir screen is carved with peacocks and lions, and above it stand painted panels of the Virgin and twelve Apostles from about 1430.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful cathedrals in Italy?
- On our list, Milan Cathedral ranks first, followed by Siena Cathedral and Otranto Cathedral.
- Why is St Peter's not the cathedral of Rome?
- The cathedral of Rome, and the seat of the Pope as bishop of Rome, is the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, which ranks above all other churches. St Peter's Basilica is a papal basilica built over the tomb of St Peter, not a cathedral.
- How was Brunelleschi's dome in Florence built?
- Brunelleschi built the dome from 1420 to 1436 without the usual wooden centering, using two shells, a herringbone brick pattern that made each course self-supporting, and hoisting machines of his own design.
- Why does Syracuse Cathedral have Greek columns?
- The cathedral was built into the fifth-century BC Doric Temple of Athena; the old columns were walled into the sides of the church and can still be seen inside and along the exterior.
- How many cathedrals are on this list in Italy?
- The list covers 15 cathedrals.