It has the boldest arches, the best light at all seasons, the most attractive floor--of gentle red--and an apse almost wholly made of coloured glass.

Not a little of its charm comes from the delicate passage-way that runs the whole course of the church high up on the yellow walls.

It also has the finest circular window in Florence, over the main entrance, a "Deposition" by Ghiberti.
The lightness was indeed once so intense that no fewer than twenty-two windows had to be closed.

The circular window over the altar upon which a new roof seems to be intruding is in reality the interloper: the roof is the original one, and the window was cut later, in defiance of good architecture, by Vasari, who, since he was a pupil of Michelangelo, should have known better.

To him was entrusted the restoration of the church in the middle of the sixteenth century.
The original architect of the modern S.Croce was the same Arnolfo di Cambio, or Lapo, who began the Duomo.