Image Details

Plan of Santo Stefano in Bologna, a 12th-century Italian church dedicated to St. Stephen. Behind the central octagonal church lies a courtyard, which leads to the chapel of Santa Croce (the Holy Cross), which contained copies of the Mount of Calvary and the True Cross. It is this central complex (highlighted in yellow on the plan), built in the 12th century, that replicates the design of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The distance (about 120 feet) between the rotunda and Santa Croce equals that between the Tomb of Jesus and Calvary in the Jerusalem church, as reconstructed in the 11th century.

The location of the Church of John the Baptist corresponds to the spot where a baptistery chapel of the same dedication was attached to the 11th-century Jerusalem church.