Why go
This history helps make sense of the contrast between the older exterior, the Baroque nave and the shrine within Saint Dominic’s chapel. Follow the movement of the friars, the saint’s tomb and the choir rather than treating the building as one period.
The full story
Dominic reached Bologna in 1218 and saw the importance of a university city for his preaching mission. The friars first gathered at Mascarella, then moved in 1219 to San Nicolò of the Vineyards. Dominic lived there, held early general chapters of his order and died in 1221. His burial behind the altar soon became a focus for visitors. The Dominicans bought surrounding land and enlarged both church and convent in the following decades. The basilica was consecrated in 1251. The new building once had distinct sections for friars and lay worshippers; the separation was removed in the early seventeenth century, when the choir moved behind the altar. The tomb also changed. Dominic’s remains went from a simple marble sarcophagus into a more elaborate shrine completed in 1267, to which sculptors added new layers for centuries. Finally, Carlo Francesco Dotti’s eighteenth-century redesign gave much of the interior its present Baroque appearance. Each stage leaves a clue in the building or monument.