Chiesa di San Michele in Foro

One of Lucca's many architecturally significant churches, this glittering Romanesque edifice marks the spot where the city's Roman forum was. The present building with exquisite wedding-cake facade was constructed over 300 years on the site of its 8th-century precursor, beginning in the 11th century. Crowning the structure is a figure of the archangel Michael slaying a dragon. Inside, its plain, dimly lit interior comes as something as a shock: don't miss Filippino Lippi's 1479 painting of Sts Helen, Jerome, Sebastian and Roch (complete with plague sore) in the south transept.