Church of the Eremitani

The Eremitani is a large Augustinian church next door to the Scrovegni Chapel, and it is the site of one of the worst single losses of Italian Renaissance painting. Its Ovetari Chapel was frescoed by Andrea Mantegna in his twenties; an Allied bomb destroyed almost all of it on 11 March 1944. What is here now is partly survival, partly reconstruction, and worth seeing for both.

An active parish church, free to enter and reliant on donations, with a restoration programme behind it that ran for decades.

The Ovetari Chapel is a war memorial as much as an art-historical site. It is presented plainly, without drama, and the appropriate response is the same.

Going in at all is the useful thing here: this is a significant building standing beside one of Italy's most-booked attractions and receiving a tiny fraction of its visitors.

The church is free to enter and keeps parish hours, closing over the middle of the day. It is immediately beside the Scrovegni Chapel ticket office, so it is easy to combine with a booked chapel slot -- and, unlike the chapel, needs no reservation at all. About ten minutes on foot from the railway station.