The Arche Scaligere
The Scaligeri Tombs, Suspended in the Open Air
Gothic Canopies • Cangrande • Santa Maria Antica • Free to See
See the Tombs Get Early Access⚔️ Visiting the Tombs
🧭 Why Visit
The lords who ran Verona for a century are buried in the street. Not in a chapel, not in a crypt, but in carved Gothic canopies raised on columns in a small enclosure beside a small church, behind a wrought iron fence made of their own family emblem. It takes five minutes to see and it is one of the strangest things in the city.
🏛️ A Little History
The della Scala family ruled Verona from 1262 to 1387. Their tombs went up beside Santa Maria Antica, the family's parish church, through the fourteenth century. Cangrande I, the greatest of them and Dante's protector, sits over the church door on horseback. Mastino II and Cansignorio have the two tallest canopies inside the enclosure.
💡 Did You Know?
The iron fence around the tombs is made of repeated ladder motifs. Scala means ladder, and the family put their name into the railing. The equestrian Cangrande on the church door is a copy; the original is at Castelvecchio.
The Arche Scaligere
Gothic canopies on columns, behind a fence made of ladders.
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Visiting The Arche Scaligere
- You do not need a ticket. The tombs are seen from the street through the railing, and that is how they were meant to be seen.
- Look at the fence before the tombs. The ladder motif repeated all the way round is the family signing its own name.
- Cangrande is the one on horseback over the church door, smiling, with his helmet pushed back. Go to Castelvecchio afterwards to see the original.
- It sits between Piazza dei Signori and Casa di Giulietta, so it costs you nothing to walk past on a route you were taking anyway.
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