Description
The Church of San Francesco Grande is the heart of a large Gothic complex in the centre of Padua, between the old friary and the city's first true hospital. Outside there is a very long portico, inside a bright nave full of works, from Paolo Veronese to Bartolomeo Bellano.
The portico runs along Via San Francesco for thirty-seven arches decorated in terracotta and once linked church, friary and hospital. Its vaults were all painted with the stories of Saint Francis by Francesco Squarcione between 1452 and 1466: today only a few figures can still be made out.
Inside, the space is wide and light, with cross vaults decorated in geometric bands. The four red marble columns holding up the arches come from Piazza dei Signori and still have the rings for tying up horses.
On the inner façade is the Ascension by Paolo Veronese. The lower part was stolen and in 1625 Pietro Damini repainted it; the stolen fragment ended up in Prague.
In the right aisle, the Chapel of Santa Maria della Carità was entirely frescoed by Girolamo Tessari in 1523-1524, with the stories of the Virgin, the Sibyls and the allegories of Charity and Faith. Some figures are taken from Albrecht Dürer's engravings.
In the right transept stands out the monument to Pietro Roccabonella, physician and philosopher, with bronzes by Bartolomeo Bellano, completed by Andrea Briosco in 1497. The monument was taken apart in the sixteenth century: the physician at his lectern and the Virgin with saints now sit above two different doors.
The church was born from the generosity of a married couple, Baldo de' Bonafari and Sibilla de Cetto, close to the Carraresi court. In 1414 they set aside part of their wealth for a church, a friary for the Friars Minor and a hospital for the poor, which remained in use until 1798.
Baldo died before the work was finished and it was Sibilla who saw it through; the church was consecrated in 1430. Their faces, side by side on the tombstone, can be seen under the portico of the Ospedale Giustinianeo.
Also buried here are the painter Francesco Squarcione and Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga-Nevers, the last Duke of Mantua. And the polyptych that Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d'Alemagna painted for one of the altars in 1447, probably carried off by the French, is now in the National Gallery in Prague.
The portico runs along Via San Francesco for thirty-seven arches decorated in terracotta and once linked church, friary and hospital. Its vaults were all painted with the stories of Saint Francis by Francesco Squarcione between 1452 and 1466: today only a few figures can still be made out.
Inside, the space is wide and light, with cross vaults decorated in geometric bands. The four red marble columns holding up the arches come from Piazza dei Signori and still have the rings for tying up horses.
On the inner façade is the Ascension by Paolo Veronese. The lower part was stolen and in 1625 Pietro Damini repainted it; the stolen fragment ended up in Prague.
In the right aisle, the Chapel of Santa Maria della Carità was entirely frescoed by Girolamo Tessari in 1523-1524, with the stories of the Virgin, the Sibyls and the allegories of Charity and Faith. Some figures are taken from Albrecht Dürer's engravings.
In the right transept stands out the monument to Pietro Roccabonella, physician and philosopher, with bronzes by Bartolomeo Bellano, completed by Andrea Briosco in 1497. The monument was taken apart in the sixteenth century: the physician at his lectern and the Virgin with saints now sit above two different doors.
The church was born from the generosity of a married couple, Baldo de' Bonafari and Sibilla de Cetto, close to the Carraresi court. In 1414 they set aside part of their wealth for a church, a friary for the Friars Minor and a hospital for the poor, which remained in use until 1798.
Baldo died before the work was finished and it was Sibilla who saw it through; the church was consecrated in 1430. Their faces, side by side on the tombstone, can be seen under the portico of the Ospedale Giustinianeo.
Also buried here are the painter Francesco Squarcione and Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga-Nevers, the last Duke of Mantua. And the polyptych that Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d'Alemagna painted for one of the altars in 1447, probably carried off by the French, is now in the National Gallery in Prague.