Just one block behind the Pantheon, Santa Maria sopra Minerva is Rome’s most significant Dominican church and the only major Gothic church downtown. The facade is in Renaissance style (the church was begun in 1280 but worked on until 1725), but inside, the arched vaulting is pure Gothic. The main art treasures here are the “Statua del Redentore” (1521), a statue of Christ by Michelangelo (just to the left of the altar), and a wonderful fresco cycle in the Cappella Carafa (on the right before the altar), created by Filippino Lippi between 1488 and 1493 to honor St. Thomas Aquinas. Devout Catholics flock to the tomb of Saint Catherine of Siena under the high altar—the room where she died in 1380 was reconstructed by Antonio Barberini in 1637 (far left corner of the church). Fra Angelico, the Dominican friar and painter, also rests here, in the Cappella Frangipane e Maddaleni-Capiferro. A delightful elephant statue by Bernini holds up a small obelisk in the piazza in front of the church.