Padova: Giotto Sotto le Stelle

“Giotto Under the Stars” … an after-hours evening tour at the Scrovegni Chapel … especially appropriate since the barrel-vaulted blue ceiling of the chapel is studded with painted stars.

When our host suggested that we pre-book the Scrovegni Chapel if we intended to go there to see the famed Giotto frescos, the evening visits after 8:30p were the only ones that still had availability for our dates.

So, off we went tonight — after resting and having a light dinner at the apartment — to check out what is often referred to as the “Little Sistine Chapel.” I’m not sure I would go quite that far, but Scrovegni Chapel exceeded our expectations in every way … filled with amazingly well preserved frescos that were painted by Giotto between 1303-1305. The chapel’s place on the UNESCO World Heritage listing is most definitely well-deserved.

To check in for our visit, we returned to the Eremitani Museum. Shortly before our admission time of 8:40p, our tickets were scanned and we were directed to the cloak room to check our bags if necessary. We had pre-planned for this … our small bags passed muster and we continued down the path through the grounds to the chapel.

Ongoing preservation initiatives for the frescos are ensured by adhering to a strict plan that allows the door to be opened only twice for each timed entry.

The total visit is around 40 minutes long. First, 20 minutes in a room that serves as an airlock of sorts to stabilize the temperature and humidity before visitors are allowed to enter the climate-controlled environment of the chapel for the next 20 minutes. During the first 20 minutes, visitors are seated and shown a multimedia presentation about the chapel, its history, and its frescos.

When we arrived at the multimedia room, it was already filled with visitors from the 8:20p group. Shortly before our timed entry, a door in the hall behind the room was opened and the 8:00p group exited the chapel. With that door then closed, the 8:20p group exited the multimedia room and went to the chapel. After the door was closed behind them, our group entered the multimedia room to watch the video presentation.

And the cycle of entry and exit thus continued.

A few notes from the presentation …

🌀 The chapel was part of a large estate built by Enrico Scrovegni … commissioned to atone for his father’s sins of usury … consigned by Dante to hell as a usurer in his “Divine Comedy.”

🌀 Giotto’s frescos are considered groundbreaking because they mark the shift from the Byzantine style of painting “… toward realism and emotion in Western art, similar to Michelangelo’s work in the Vatican 200 years later.”

🌀 The frescos were painted from top to bottom … moist plaster was applied to a surface just large enough to be painted in a day … it is assumed that preliminary drawings were made in each section with Giotto leaving the painting of secondary figures and backgrounds to members of his workshop after he worked on the primary figures/scenes.

🌀 The stories are painted in tiers … top left tier (when facing the Last Judgment on the west wall) depicts the lives of Joachim and Anna, Mary’s parents; top right tier, depicts the life of the Virgin; the next two tiers on either side depict the life of Christ; the bottom tier shows allegorical figures of the seven virtues and seven vices.

🌀 Some of the key frescos: the Last Judgment with its raw and very explicit scene of hell; Enrico Scrovegni offering the chapel to the Virgin Mary; the kiss of Judas; the meeting at the Golden Gate of Joachim and Anna … the first intimate kiss in Western art; the adoration of the Magi … with Halley’s comet in lieu of the Star of Bethlehem (the comet thought to have been seen by Giotto in 1301).

We were concerned that the 20 minutes in the chapel would not be sufficient for us ‘slow travelers’. We tried, after the fact, to add another 20 minutes by booking “an extended ticket” … something the ticketing website didn’t make clear that we could do. Unfortunately, by then, all of the timed slots were full.

In the end, when we left the Scrovegni Chapel, we felt the 20 minutes were sufficient. In hindsight, continuing to research the frescos following our visit and studying the photos we both took, I have concluded that the extra time would have come in useful to study the smaller details in the medallions and such. But it is what it is and we are happy enough with the way our evening visit turned out … especially since good lighting inside the chapel meant we got high resolution photos that I can zoom into on my laptop.

By the way, we were lucky with our group size. Max number of people for each time slot is 25. In our case, there were around 15 people, which meant we had fewer people to weave our way around as we walked up and down what would have been the nave back in the day.

Contrary to the fact that we visit lots of places of worship, we are not what you would call religious. That said, we were quite impressed with Scrovegni Chapel. I can only imagine how much more meaningful the place and the frescos would be to someone of faith.

(There is so much more that I could write … but I’ll leave you with two links. (1) a 360° tour where you can dive deeper into specific frescos: https://www.haltadefinizione.com/en/image-bank/…; (2) more detailed information, use links and the “i” buttons on the right: https://www.wga.hu/html_m/g/giotto/padova/index….)Read more