Giotto and Mantegna

Dedicated to Santa Maria della Carità, the Scrovegni Chapel is located in the Arena Gardens; it was built and frescoed between 1303 and the first months of 1305 by Enrico Scrovegni in suffrage of the soul of his father, a very rich usurer and founder of the family's fortunes.

In Giotto, the characters detach themselves from the canons of Byzantine and medieval art to acquire their own unique and inimitable physiognomy, freeing themselves autonomously in space: for this reason, the Scrovegni cycle represents one of the greatest masterpieces of world painting, which over the centuries has struck and influenced generations of painters, artists and men of culture.

A few steps away is the Church of the Eremitani, which in the Ovetari Chapel houses one of the first masterpieces by Andrea Mantegna, originally from Padua. In 1944 the Chapel was hit by an Allied bomb, which reduced the entire pictorial cycle to shreds; What remains is the result of the painstaking restoration of generations of experts and the use of the most modern technologies.

Between the two churches is the main campus of the Civic Museums, with its rich collections that include the works of the likes of Giorgione, Titian, Giotto, Tintoretto, Veronese, Canova and Tiepolo.

Civic Museums at the Eremitani          
piazza Eremitani 8
Tel. 049.8204551
Hours: 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.,  closed on Mondays

Srovegni Chapel
piazza Eremitani 8, entrance from the Civic Museums to the Eremitani
Visits by reservation up to the day before, last minute subject to availability
evening visits from 1 March to 4 November, last admission at 9.40 pm
Tel. 049.2010020
Hours: 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.
discount with Studying at Padova Card
www.cappelladegliscrovegni.it