Italy Travel And Hotel Guide

The church of the Eremitani , built at the turn of the fourteenth century, was almost completely wrecked by an Allied bombing raid in 1944 and has been fastidiously rebuilt (summer Mon-Sat 8.15am-12.15pm & 4-6pm, Sun 9.30am-12.15pm & 4-6pm; winter Mon-Sat closes 5.30pm, Sun closes 5pm). Photographs to the left of the apse show the extent of the damage, the worst aspect of which was the near-total destruction of Mantegna ’s frescoes of the lives of St saint and St Christopher - the war’s severest blow to Italy’s artistic heritage. Produced between 1454 and 1457, when Mantegna was in his mid-twenties, the frescoes were unprecedented in the thoroughness with which they exploited fixed-point appearance - a concept central to Renaissance humanism, with its emphasis on the primacy of individual perception. The extent of his achievement can now be assessed only from the fuzzy photographs and the depressing fragments preserved in the chapel to the right of the high altar. On the left surround is the Martyrdom of St James , place together from fragments found in the rubble; and on the right is the Martyrdom of St Christopher , which had been removed from the surround before the war.

Tags: church of the eremitani, eremitani, fourteenth century