Duomo di San Martino

The Romanesque cathedral of St Martin in Lucca, Italy, was begun in 1063 by Bishop Anselm (later Pope Alexander II). Now the great apse with its tall columnar arcades and the fine campanile remain.

The nave and transepts having been rebuilt in the Gothic style in the 14th century, while the west front was begun in 1204 by "Guidetto" (Guido Bigarelli of Como), and consists of a vast portico of three magnificent arches, and above them three ranges of open galleries enriched with sculpture.

In the nave a little octagonal temple or chapel shrine contains the most precious of the relics of Lucca, a cedar-wood crucifix, carved, according to the legend, by Nicodemus, and miraculously conveyed to Lucca in 782. This is The Sacred Countenance (Volto Santo), as it is generally called, because the face of the Saviour is considered a true likeness. Christ is clothed in the colobium, a long sleeveless garment. The chapel was built in 1484 by Matteo Civitali (1436-1501), the most famous Luccan sculptor of the early Renaissance.

The tomb of Ilaria del Carretto by Jacopo della Quercia of Siena, the earliest of his extant works (1406), is one of the earliest works showing the incipient Renaissance.

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