The bronze doors and Mantegna's altarpiece
A short walk from the centre of Verona, the Basilica of San Zeno Maggiore is one of the masterpieces of Romanesque architecture in Italy. Dedicated to St Zeno, the African-born bishop and patron saint of the city in the fourth century, whose body lies in the crypt, it was rebuilt in its present form in the twelfth century, in tuff and brick in alternating bands, with a slender bell tower and a great rose window called the Wheel of Fortune.
The portal, framed by a porch resting on two lions, is closed by extraordinary bronze doors of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with 48 panels depicting biblical scenes and the life of St Zeno with a vivid, almost naive expressiveness. Inside, the church is on three levels: the nave with a ship's keel wooden ceiling, the raised presbytery and the crypt. On the high altar stands the San Zeno Altarpiece by Andrea Mantegna (1457 to 1459), a triptych of the Madonna and Child with saints set in an illusionistic classical loggia, one of the founding works of the Renaissance in northern Italy; the predella panels are copies, as the originals, taken by Napoleon, remained in the Louvre and in Tours. Tradition places the marriage of Romeo and Juliet in the crypt.
Tip: the cloister and the ancient frescoes on the walls of the nave, with layers of different periods, are well worth a look.
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