The story of this place
Enrico Scrovegni, son of a notorious usurer, commissioned this chapel around 1303—partly, it is said, to atone for the sin of his family's money-lending, which Dante had condemned to hell. Between 1303 and 1305 Giotto covered its walls with a revolutionary fresco cycle of the lives of the Virgin and Christ, rendering figures with unprecedented weight, emotion, and three-dimensional space set against a famous deep-blue starry vault. Art historians mark this as the moment medieval painting broke toward the Renaissance and modern naturalism. The tender 'Lamentation' and the psychologically charged 'Kiss of Judas' are landmarks of Western art. To protect the fragile frescoes, visitors now enter through a climate-controlled airlock in strictly timed groups.