Verona Cathedral Historical Timeline

Origins

Christian buildings stood on this ground from late antiquity; excavations beneath the complex have found successive early churches, and parts of them are visible under the cloister.

Turning points

The present cathedral was begun in the twelfth century after the 1117 earthquake -- the same disaster that prompted the rebuilding of San Zeno -- and the lower facade and porch belong to that campaign.

Influential people

Nicolò carved the porch around 1139. That he also worked at San Zeno makes the two buildings a matched pair, and comparing them is the best way to see what a single Romanesque workshop could do.

Cultural evolution

The upper church was rebuilt in Gothic form in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and Renaissance families added chapels -- Michele Sanmicheli designed the choir screen and the Nichesola Chapel, for which Titian painted the Assumption around 1535.

Present-day significance

The Biblioteca Capitolare has been copying and keeping manuscripts on this site since roughly the fifth century, which makes it a serious claimant to being the oldest library still functioning anywhere.