Interior of Santa Croce Florence Italy

The Basilica became popular with Florentines as a place of worship and patronage and it became customary for greatly honoured Florentines to be buried or commemorated there. Some were in chapels "owned" by wealthy families such as the Bardi and Peruzzi. As time progressed, space was also granted to notable Italians from elsewhere. For 500 years monuments were erected in the church including those to: Leon Battista Alberti (15th century architect and artistic theorist) Vittorio Alfieri (18th century poet and dramatist) Eugenio Barsanti (co-inventor of the internal combustion engine) Lorenzo Bartolini (19th century sculptor) Julie Clary, wife of Joseph Bonaparte, and their daughter Charlotte Napoléone Bonaparte Leonardo Bruni (15th century chancellor of the Republic, scholar and historian) Dante (actually buried in Ravenna) Ugo Foscolo (19th century poet) Galileo Galilei Giovanni Gentile (20th century philosopher) Lorenzo Ghiberti Vittorio Ghiberti Niccolò Machiavelli by Innocenzo Spinazzi Carlo Marsuppini (15th century chancellor of the Republic) Michelangelo Buonarroti Raffaello Morgheni (19th century engraver) Gioacchino Rossini Louise of Stolberg-Gedern (wife of Charles Edward Stuart) Guglielmo Marconi Enrico Fermi