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PADUA
- THE CITY |
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From the train station, the Corso del
Popolo, later the Corso Garibaldi lead
south through a gap in the Renaissance
city walls towards the centre of the
city, passing after a short distance
the Cappella degli Scrovegni
and Musei Civici (Tues-Sun:
Feb-Oct 9am-7pm; Nov-Jan 9am-6pm;
entrance included in Padova Arte
ticket; Cappella is also open on its
own on Mon; L7000/?3.62). For many
people the Giotto frescoes
(L2000/?1.03 surcharge; tel
049.820.4550) in the Scrovegni,
considered to be one of the key works
in the development of European art,
are the reason for coming to
Padua, but even if you're no expert
the chapel exerts an extraordinary
presence. If anything the sense of
drama has been increased by the new
airlock entrance system, recently
installed in an attempt to reverse the
damage caused to the frescoes by high
levels of humidity borne by the breath
and clothing of visitors. At the time
printed on your ticket, the glass door
to the waiting room slides open to
allow the next set of visitors in -
and immediately shuts again, anyone
left outside being forced to pay up
and book another slot. Once inside, a
high-tech system adjusts the air
humidity of the waiting room down to
that of the chapel itself and filters
away the worst of the spores and
pollution. Fourteen minutes later
another door leading to the chapel
itself opens and you have exactly a
quarter of an hour to take in the
frescoes before being ejected through
a third glass door back into the
grounds of the museum. Visits are
restricted to a maximum of twenty-five
people at a time and given the
popularity of the Scrovegni it's worth
booking around three days in advance.
If you're travelling in a group,
however, or at weekends during high
season it's worth booking as much as a
month ahead; out of season, you can
usually just turn up and wait.
The chapel was commissioned in 1303
by Enrico Scrovegni in atonement for
his father's usury, which was so
vicious that he was denied a Christian
burial. As soon as the walls were
built, Giotto was commissioned to
cover them with illustrations of the
life of Mary, the life of Jesus and
the story of the Passion; the finished
cycle, arranged in three tightly-knit
tiers and painted against a backdrop
of saturated blue, is one of the high
points in the development of European
art. The Scrovegni series is a
marvellous demonstration of Giotto's
innovative attention to the inner
nature of his subjects. In terms of
sheer physical presence and the
relationships between the figures and
their environment, Giotto's work takes
the first important strides towards
realism and humanism. The Joachim
series on the top row of the north
wall (on your right as you walk in) is
particularly powerful - note the
exchange of looks between the two
shepherds in the Arrival of Joachim
. Beneath the main pictures are shown
the vices and virtues in human
(usually female) form, while on the
wall above the door is a Last
Judgement - in rather poor
condition and now thought to be only
partly by Giotto - with rivers of fire
leading from God to hell. Directly
above the door is a portrait of
Scrovegni presenting the chapel; his
tomb is at the far end, behind the
altar with its statues by Giovanni
Pisano.
The neighbouring Musei Civici
degli Eremitani (same hours and
ticket as above), formerly the
monastery of the Eremitani, is a
superbly presented three-part museum
complex. The archeological collection,
on the ground floor, has a vast array
of pre-Roman, Roman and paleo-Christian
objects. Upstairs, the vast Museo
d'Arte houses an extensive
assembly of fourteenth- to
nineteenth-century art from the Veneto
and further afield. The collection is
arranged in chronological order, and
it's a fairly long walk through tracts
of workaday stuff, but names such as
Titian, Tintoretto and Tiepolo leaven
the mix. Spectacular highpoints are
provided by the Giotto Crucifixion
that was once in the Scrovegni chapel,
and a fine Portrait of a Young
Senator by Bellini. The
Capodilista collection, an offshoot of
the main gallery, has a pair of
mysterious Titian and Giorgione
landscapes, and some good Luca
Giordano grotesques. The Museo
Bottacin , for more specialist
tastes, was founded in 1865 and
contains over 50,000 coins, medals and
seals, making it one of the most
important museums of its type in the
world.
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