The hunchbacks holding up the holy water stoups in Sant'Anastasia, and what else to look for

The Dominicans' great church

Santa Anastasia is the largest Gothic church in Verona, raised by the Dominican friars near the Adige, a short walk from the Scaliger tombs. The brick front gives almost no warning of what waits inside: tall columns of red and white marble, painted vaults overhead, a floor laid out like a carpet, and one of the most admired paintings of the late Gothic age.

It is also a church with a sense of humor. Two small marble hunchbacks crouch under the holy-water basins by the entrance, and they are usually the first thing visitors reach for a camera to capture. Between those figures and Pisanello's fresco near the altar, an hour passes easily and rewards close attention.

From friary to basilica

The Dominicans reached Verona around the year twelve twenty and first settled outside the walls. In twelve sixty, Bishop Manfredo Roberti granted them land inside the city, on a site where an older church dedicated to Saint Anastasia already stood. Work on the present building began in twelve ninety and continued for more than a century, helped along by generous support from the della Scala family who then ruled the city.

The new church was formally dedicated to the Dominican martyr Saint Peter of Verona, but the older name never let go, and everyone still calls it Santa Anastasia. It was consecrated on the twenty-second of October, fourteen seventy-one. The facade, however, was never finished, which is why most of its surface remains plain brick to this day.

The facade and the tower

The one completed part of the front is the portal: a wide pointed marble arch framing twin doors, with columns worked in red, white and black stone. The carved panels are read by some as scenes from the life of Saint Peter Martyr and by others as stories of Christ with Dominican saints, while the frescoed lunette above shows the Trinity. The contrast between this polished, carved frame and the rough brick around it tells the whole story of the unfinished project.

Beside the left transept rises the brick bell tower, roughly seventy-two meters high, marked off into levels by bands of white stone and topped with a conical terracotta spire. Outside, near the church, stands the canopied tomb of Guglielmo da Castelbarco, a patron who died in thirteen twenty and left money toward the building's construction.

The hunchbacks at the door

Just inside the entrance, at the first pair of columns, two crouching figures carry the holy-water basins on their backs, and they give the church its most photographed detail. The figure on the left is attributed to Gabriele Caliari, father of the painter Paolo Veronese, and was placed in fourteen ninety-one. The one on the right, attributed to Paolo Orefice, was added at Easter in fifteen ninety-one, and its local nickname comes from that feast.

Folk tradition holds that touching a hump brings luck, which explains why the stone on both figures is noticeably smoother in places than the rest of the carving. Children in particular tend to stop here first, before anyone has even looked up at the nave.

The floor and the vaults

Beyond the hunchbacks, look down. The floor is still the original paving of white, black and red stone; most sources date it to fourteen sixty-two, under a craftsman named Pietro da Porlezza, though the city's own tourism material gives an earlier date within the same century. The pattern of colors is usually read as a nod to the white and black of the Dominican habit.

Then look up. The three naves are covered by ribbed cross vaults, and on the vaults and walls of the transept and side chapels survives a painted decoration of vine scrolls and ornamental motifs, pinwheels and shaded discs set against light plaster, with the della Scala coat of arms marking the main arch.

Pisanello's Saint George

The Pellegrini chapel sits to the right of the main chapel. Inside, terracotta reliefs by Michele da Firenze depict episodes from the life of Christ, funded through a bequest left by Andrea Pellegrini, who died in fourteen twenty-nine. Above the entrance arch, on the outside wall, is Pisanello's fresco of Saint George and the Princess, painted between roughly fourteen thirty-three and fourteen thirty-eight.

Water damage from the roof destroyed the left side of the composition, where the dragon once was. What survives shows the saint about to mount his white horse, seen from behind, the princess in profile with a fashionable high hairline, knights, dogs and a ram, and a towered city with two hanged men near its gate. The fresco was detached in the nineteenth century for conservation and returned to its original place in nineteen ninety-six. Bring binoculars or a zoom lens, since it sits high on the wall and the detail rewards a closer look than the naked eye allows.

Other chapels and how to visit

In the Cavalli chapel, Altichiero painted knights of the Cavalli family presented to the Virgin, his only documented work in Verona, usually dated to the later fourteenth century. The Cortesia Serego monument shows a knight on horseback carved in marble by the Florentine sculptor Pietro di Niccolò Lamberti. Farther along, the Fregoso altar of fifteen sixty-five by Danese Cattaneo, praised in its own time by Giorgio Vasari, commemorates the Genoese commander Giano Fregoso, and other side chapels hold work by Liberale da Verona and Falconetto.

Santa Anastasia is one of four historic churches managed for visitors by the Chiese Vive association, alongside the Duomo, San Zeno and San Fermo. Visitors can buy a ticket for this church alone or a combined card covering all four; the association's own website lists the current arrangements and visiting times, which change with the season, so it is worth checking before setting out, in the same way it pays to check ahead for other sights around town, as explained on the booking ahead page.

Tourist visits pause during services, so confirm the schedule before crossing town for this alone. The church sits naturally on a walk that also takes in Piazza dei Signori and the Scaliger tombs, and continues down toward Ponte Pietra on the river.