The Basilica of Sant’Andrea is a Roman Catholic church in Mantua, Italy, designed by Leon Battista Alberti. It bears the title of a minor basilica.
Ludovico Gonzaga commissioned a church from Alberti in 1470, which was supposed to offer a suitable place for the veneration of a Holy Blood relic. For the design of Sant’Andrea's floor plan, Alberti used an ancient Roman way of dividing the wall. He chose a so-called "Etruscum sacrum", a sanctuary of ancient Italian, as a model for the floor plan. Alberti replaced the side aisles of the nave of the basilica with a series of chapels, which was a momentous innovation for the church building in the late Renaissance and Baroque periods. Alberti, who dealt intensively with ancient architecture, aimed for a monumental effect that should come close to his historical models. He derives the mighty coffered barrel vault from the Basilica of Constantine. In the facade he combines the ancient temple front with a triumphal arch with flat pilasters instead of the usual columns.
The first construction phase ran from 1472 to 1494. Alberti did not see the completion of the church in 1514; he died in the year construction began.
The current shape with crossing and drum dome was not created until the 18th century. Alberti probably planned the end of the nave with a semicircular apse in his original plan, so the nave was more clearly staged than in its current form. The architect of the completion and the dome in the 18th century was Filippo Juvara.
In the church there are paintings and also the grave of the renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna.