Scrovegni Chapel

Enrico Scrovegni built the chapel around 1303, on ground he had bought with money from a family fortune made in moneylending, and had Giotto fresco it entirely between about 1303 and 1305. The cycle runs in three tiers around the walls with the lives of Joachim, Mary and Christ, ending in a Last Judgement over the entrance in which Scrovegni himself offers the chapel model. Giotto gave figures weight, space and readable emotion in ways that broke with the flat Byzantine manner, and the cycle is treated as a turning point in European painting. Visits are limited to twenty-five minutes after fifteen in a climate-controlled airlock.

History

The banker Enrico Scrovegni bought the ground where Padua's Roman arena had stood on 6 February 1300, built a palace there with a chapel beside it as the family oratory and his own funerary monument, and gave the decoration to Giotto, who had already worked for the Franciscans of Assisi and Rimini and at the Basilica of Saint Anthony. The chapel was first consecrated on 25 March 1303 and finally on 25 March 1305, so Giotto, then about 36 to 38 years old, painted it in those two years with a team of some 40 helpers in about 625 days of fresco work. In January 1305 the friars of the nearby Eremitani complained that Scrovegni was turning his oratory into a church with a bell tower, and the apse and transept seen in the model of the chapel in the Last Judgement were probably pulled down as a result; in 2021 the chapel became part of the World Heritage Site of Padua's fourteenth-century fresco cycles (Wikipedia, Scrovegni Chapel).

Highlights

• The complete cycle - Giotto's frescoes covering every wall in three tiers.
• The blue vault - a starred ceiling in lapis over the whole chapel.
• The Last Judgement - the patron shown offering the chapel he built.
• The airlock entry - a conditioning chamber before the doors open.

When to go

Year-round; slots are timed and sell out, so booking well ahead is essential. Evening slots are longer in some seasons. It closes only for a few holidays.

Things to know

The visit is fifteen minutes in the airlock plus about twenty inside, no longer. Tickets must be booked in advance. Group size is capped and photography restricted.

Nearby

The Basilica of St Anthony lies south; the botanic garden is close.

Key facts