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Santa Anastasia

Verona's Largest Church, and Its Most Painted

Gothic Nave • Frescoed Vaults • Pisanello • The Hunchbacks

Visit Santa Anastasia Get Early Access

⛪ Visiting Santa Anastasia

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The City's Largest

Begun 1290, two centuries in the building

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Forty Minutes

Longer if you go looking for the Pisanello

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Church Ticket

Covered by the combined churches ticket sold across the city

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Look Up, Then Down

The vaults and the floor are the two things people miss

🧭 Why Visit

The biggest church in Verona and the one that rewards looking up the most. The Dominicans began it in 1290 and it took two centuries, so the vaults carry painted decoration the whole way along, floral and geometric rather than figurative, in a scheme that runs unbroken from door to apse. The floor is worth as much attention as the ceiling.

🏛️ A Little History

Begun by the Dominicans in 1290 on the site of an earlier church and not finished until the late fifteenth century. The facade was never completed, which is why the front is bare brick while the inside is covered. Pisanello's fresco of Saint George and the Princess is here, high in the Pellegrini chapel.

💡 Did You Know?

Two crouching figures carry the holy water stoups just inside the door. Veronese call them i gobbi, the hunchbacks, and rubbing them is a local habit of long standing. They are the most touched things in the building.

Inside

The Nave

Two centuries of building, and painted the whole way.

Marble columns and painted vaulting running the length of Santa Anastasia in Verona
Down the NaveMarble columns in alternating stone, and the vault pattern running away over them.
The nave of Santa Anastasia in Verona looking back toward its rose window
Back Toward the Rose WindowThe view most people never take, because it needs turning round before you leave.
Look Up

The Vaults

The decoration is pattern rather than picture, and it never stops.

The painted vault of Santa Anastasia in Verona, ribbed and covered in floral pattern
The VaultRibbed, painted and floral. No figures, just pattern, carried the full length of the building.
Frescoed vaulting meeting a carved capital inside Santa Anastasia in Verona
Where Vault Meets CapitalThe painted scheme runs down to the capitals and stops exactly where the stone carving begins.
A frescoed arch with painted roundels inside Santa Anastasia in Verona
The Frescoed ArchRoundels and foliage across an arch, in the same hand as the vaults above it.
Look Down

The Floor

Worth as much attention as the ceiling, and almost nobody gives it any.

The geometric marble floor of Santa Anastasia in Verona receding into perspective
The FloorGeometric marble in three colours, laid so it reads as blocks in perspective.

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Visiting Santa Anastasia

  • Buy the combined churches ticket if you plan on more than one. It covers Santa Anastasia, the Duomo and San Fermo among others, and it pays for itself at the second door.
  • The Pisanello is high up and badly lit. Bring patience, and stand well back rather than close.
  • The marble floor is a design in its own right. Walk the nave once with your eyes down.
  • Touch the hunchbacks on the way in. Everyone does, which is why they are worn smooth.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Santa Anastasia the cathedral?
No. Verona's cathedral is the Duomo, a ten minute walk north. Santa Anastasia is a Dominican church and is the largest in the city, which confuses people constantly.
What should I look for inside?
The painted vaults, which run the full length. The marble floor. Pisanello's Saint George and the Princess in the Pellegrini chapel. And the two hunchbacks holding the holy water stoups by the door.
Why is the front unfinished?
It ran out of money and momentum. The lower part of the facade was faced and the rest never was, so it stands in bare brick with a finished doorway, which is not unusual for a church of this size and date.
How does it fit with the other churches?
It is five minutes from Piazza delle Erbe and ten from the Duomo, so the three make an easy circuit in one morning.

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