The Most Beautiful Medieval Cathedrals in Italy
7 places ยท updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful medieval cathedrals in Italy are Milan Cathedral, Siena Cathedral and St Mark's Basilica. The list covers 7 medieval cathedrals. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Italy's medieval cathedrals grew out of rival city-states, each wanting the most splendid church, and out of a land where Byzantine mosaic, Norman power and early Renaissance engineering met. Marble from Carrara and Tuscany, gold glass from Venice and civic pride paid for buildings that took generations.
Milan Cathedral was begun in 1386 and finished only in the 20th century, its roof a forest of pinnacles and statues you can walk among. Siena Cathedral is banded in black and white marble, and its floor is inlaid with marble pictures made over two centuries. St Mark's Basilica in Venice, built on a Byzantine plan with five domes, glows with acres of gold mosaic. Florence Cathedral is crowned by Brunelleschi's dome, built without centring between 1420 and 1436 and still the largest brick dome ever built. The cathedral of Monreale, above Palermo, was raised by the Norman king William II and is lined with Byzantine mosaics on gold ground.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Milan Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 2 | Siena Cathedral | Cathedral | โ |
| 3 | St Mark's Basilica | Cathedral | |
| 4 | Modena Cathedral | Cathedral | โ |
| 5 | Pisa Cathedral | Cathedral | โ |
| 6 | Florence Cathedral | Cathedral | โ |
| 7 | Cattedrale di Monreale | Cathedral | โ |
01 Milan Cathedral
Duomo di Milano
Italy ยท 1.3 km from Milan45.464ยฐ N 9.191ยฐ E
Jakub Haลun ยท CC BY-SA 4.0 Milan Cathedral took almost six centuries to finish. Work began in 1386 under Archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo, at a moment when his cousin Gian Galeazzo Visconti had just taken power in the city; the last bronze portal was inaugurated only on 6 January 1965.
Did you know? Leonardo da Vinci and Bramante both took part in the 1488 competition to design the structure over the cathedral's crossing.
02 Siena Cathedral
Duomo di Siena
Italy ยท 1.7 km from Siena43.318ยฐ N 11.329ยฐ E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Anajim from Pixabay Siena's cathedral is the product of a city that wanted to outdo Florence and very nearly did. Built between about 1215 and 1263, it is clad inside and out in bands of white and dark green-black marble, the colours of Siena's black and white coat of arms, with red marble added on the facade.
Did you know? The first floor panel at the entrance shows Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary father of wisdom, designed by Giovanni di Stefano in 1488.
03 St Mark's Basilica
Basilica di San Marco
Italy ยท 0.6 km from Venice45.434ยฐ N 12.340ยฐ E
Image by NakNakNak from Pixabay St Mark's is not a cathedral that grew out of a bishop's church; it was the private chapel of the Doge and the state sanctuary of the Venetian Republic, and it became the city's cathedral only in 1807. It was built to house the body of St Mark, which, according to medieval chronicles, two Venetian merchants took from Alexandria in 828.
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.
04 Modena Cathedral
Duomo di Modena
Italy ยท 0.6 km from Modena44.646ยฐ N 10.925ยฐ E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Ermaf62 from Pixabay Modena Cathedral is one of the key buildings of European Romanesque, and it is unusual in that we know the names of the two men who made it: the architect Lanfranco and the sculptor Wiligelmus. Begun in 1099 over the grave of the city's patron, St Geminianus, and consecrated by Pope Lucius III in 1184, it stands on Piazza Grande beside its bell tower, the Ghirlandina.
05 Pisa Cathedral
Duomo di Pisa
Italy ยท 0.5 km from Pisa43.723ยฐ N 10.396ยฐ E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Makalu from Pixabay On Pisa's Piazza dei Miracoli the Leaning Tower draws the crowds, but the cathedral was there first and it is the reason the tower exists at all: the campanile is simply its bell tower. Work began in 1064 under the architect Buscheto, paid for with plunder from a Pisan raid on Muslim-held Palermo, at a moment when Pisa was racing Venice to build the most splendid church of any maritime republic.
06 Florence Cathedral
Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore
Italy ยท 1 km from Florence43.773ยฐ N 11.257ยฐ E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by spalla67 from Pixabay Santa Maria del Fiore took 140 years to build, and its defining feature was an engineering problem nobody could solve when construction began. Florence approved Arnolfo di Cambio's design in 1294 and laid the first stone on 9 September 1296; the nave was finished by 1380, but the octagonal crossing, 44 metres wide and starting 52 metres above the floor, stood open to the sky for decades.
Did you know? In 1475 the astronomer Paolo Toscanelli pierced a small hole high in the dome, turning the cathedral into a giant sundial that projects the sun onto the floor.
07 Cattedrale di Monreale
Duomo di Monreale
Italy ยท 7 km from Palermo38.082ยฐ N 13.292ยฐ E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by whoefle from Pixabay Monreale Cathedral, on a hillside above Palermo, contains one of the largest mosaic schemes in the medieval world. It was founded in the 1170s by the Norman king William II of Sicily โ according to legend, after the Virgin appeared to him in a dream while he slept under a carob tree. A more likely motive was rivalry with the archbishop of Palermo, who was building his own cathedral at the time.
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.
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 โ 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 medieval cathedrals in Italy?
- On our list, Milan Cathedral ranks first, followed by Siena Cathedral and St Mark's Basilica.
- How did Brunelleschi build the Florence dome?
- He built it without wooden centering, using two shells, a herringbone brick pattern that let each course support itself, and hoisting machines of his own design. Work ran from 1420 to 1436.
- How long did it take to build Milan Cathedral?
- Construction started in 1386, the facade was completed under Napoleon in the early 19th century, and the last details were finished in 1965, nearly six centuries later.
- How many medieval cathedrals are on this list in Italy?
- The list covers 7 medieval cathedrals.