Description
The Scrovegni Chapel is a small church in Padua, on the site of the ancient Roman arena, entirely covered with Giotto's frescoes from the early fourteenth century. It is one of the masterpieces of Western painting and, since 2021, part of the UNESCO World Heritage with Padua's other fourteenth-century fresco cycles.
The nave is about thirty meters long and the painted surface is about 700 square meters. All the walls are frescoed, divided into bands that tell the lives of Joachim and Anna, of Mary and of Christ.
The vault is an azurite-blue sky full of eight-pointed stars, with the Madonna and Child and the blessing Christ in the roundels. At the foot of the stories run the Vices and Virtues, painted in monochrome like stone statues.
On the inner facade is the Last Judgment. At the center is Christ the judge, in the colorful mandorla, with the apostles at his sides. On the right is Hell: a giant, blue Lucifer devouring the damned, amid rivers of fire and devils.
At lower left, Enrico Scrovegni, kneeling with a cleric, offers the Madonna the model of the chapel. Every 25 March, in the morning, a ray of sunlight passes between his hand and hers. It is the day of the Annunciation, to which the church is dedicated.
Among the stories, three scenes are remembered more than others. The Meeting of Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate, with tender gestures that pass for the first kiss in Italian art. The Kiss of Judas, with Christ and Judas face to face. And the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, where Mary holds her son.
The figures have real bodies under their cloaks, and the faces show wonder, grief, tenderness. Giotto worked with about forty assistants: 625 "giornate" of work have been counted, that is, pieces of fresco painted while the plaster was fresh.
Enrico was the son of a rich Paduan moneylender. In the early fourteenth century he bought the arena area and built a sumptuous palace there, with a private chapel meant as the family mausoleum. Giotto worked there between 1303 and 1305, after Assisi and Rimini.
Not everyone was pleased. In January 1305 the Eremitani friars of the neighboring convent protested because the oratory was turning into a real church, complete with a bell tower. Perhaps for this reason the apse was demolished and rebuilt smaller.
In the nineteenth century the chapel risked disappearing: the owners began demolishing the palace to sell the materials. In 1880 the City of Padua bought it.
Don't miss
• The Last Judgment.
• The Meeting at the Golden Gate.
• The Kiss of Judas.
• The Lamentation over the Dead Christ.
• The starry vault.
Did you know?
• In the Adoration of the Magi Giotto painted Halley's comet, which he had observed on its passage in 1301.
• The story that the chapel was built to atone for the sins of his father, whom Dante put in Hell among the usurers, is unfounded.
• In Japan, at the Otsuka museum, there is a full-scale copy of it.
The nave is about thirty meters long and the painted surface is about 700 square meters. All the walls are frescoed, divided into bands that tell the lives of Joachim and Anna, of Mary and of Christ.
The vault is an azurite-blue sky full of eight-pointed stars, with the Madonna and Child and the blessing Christ in the roundels. At the foot of the stories run the Vices and Virtues, painted in monochrome like stone statues.
On the inner facade is the Last Judgment. At the center is Christ the judge, in the colorful mandorla, with the apostles at his sides. On the right is Hell: a giant, blue Lucifer devouring the damned, amid rivers of fire and devils.
At lower left, Enrico Scrovegni, kneeling with a cleric, offers the Madonna the model of the chapel. Every 25 March, in the morning, a ray of sunlight passes between his hand and hers. It is the day of the Annunciation, to which the church is dedicated.
Among the stories, three scenes are remembered more than others. The Meeting of Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate, with tender gestures that pass for the first kiss in Italian art. The Kiss of Judas, with Christ and Judas face to face. And the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, where Mary holds her son.
The figures have real bodies under their cloaks, and the faces show wonder, grief, tenderness. Giotto worked with about forty assistants: 625 "giornate" of work have been counted, that is, pieces of fresco painted while the plaster was fresh.
Enrico was the son of a rich Paduan moneylender. In the early fourteenth century he bought the arena area and built a sumptuous palace there, with a private chapel meant as the family mausoleum. Giotto worked there between 1303 and 1305, after Assisi and Rimini.
Not everyone was pleased. In January 1305 the Eremitani friars of the neighboring convent protested because the oratory was turning into a real church, complete with a bell tower. Perhaps for this reason the apse was demolished and rebuilt smaller.
In the nineteenth century the chapel risked disappearing: the owners began demolishing the palace to sell the materials. In 1880 the City of Padua bought it.
Don't miss
• The Last Judgment.
• The Meeting at the Golden Gate.
• The Kiss of Judas.
• The Lamentation over the Dead Christ.
• The starry vault.
Did you know?
• In the Adoration of the Magi Giotto painted Halley's comet, which he had observed on its passage in 1301.
• The story that the chapel was built to atone for the sins of his father, whom Dante put in Hell among the usurers, is unfounded.
• In Japan, at the Otsuka museum, there is a full-scale copy of it.