The Scrovengi Chapel
The Scrovengi Chapel, also known as the Arena chapel, was built as a private church for a wealthy family seeking to make reparations to the church (buy their salvation) because their chosen profession, usury, was considered a sin. It has the nick name of Arena chapel because the house, no longer in existence and church were built on the site of a Roman Arena, the ruins of which still remain. This is an easy add on to a trip to Venice.The Details
Address: Piazza Eremitani, 8, 35121 Padua, Italy +39 049 201 0020
Hours: 9am-7pm
Cost: 13e adult, 6e 6-17years
Time: 20 minutes inside chapel
Reservations Required call or book online.
The chapel is very humble from the outside, but amazing on the inside. Painted by Giotto in the 1303 it is a beautiful building. Only 25 guests are allowed in at a time and your visit is only 15 minutes, so you must view in earnest to take it all in. You are not allowed to take photos, so I swiped these off the internet.
This is a scene from the last judgement. If you look closely at the bottom, left of the cross you can see the son presenting the church to the angels.
I think this was my favorite panel--the scene just looks so alive to me.
This is a close second!
Before we moved to Germany I bought a lecture series on European art which is how I even discovered this little gem. On our drive down to Italy we watched the lecture on this building which gave detailed descriptions of every panel in the church. It taught us how to read the panels top to bottom, right to left, which record the life of Mary and Christ. I think it helped the girls get more out of the visit because they understood what they were looking at.
Like my sister said, my kids may end up hating "travel with mom" or think I am a genius (25 years from now) to have made them listen to lectures and quiz them on the differences between fresco and tempura.
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