A ceiling that leaves no gap
A complete Baroque cycle finished in 1703 by Marchesini, Bellotti, Sante Prunati and Louis Dorigny, covering every wall and vault of three small connected rooms.
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No. The chapel lies at the end of the route of the Galleria d'Arte Moderna Achille Forti in the Palazzo della Ragione and has no separate ticket, so you either pay the six euros or use a VeronaCard, which makes it free. The consolation is that the gallery itself is small and genuinely pleasant, so the ticket is not wasted.
The chapel itself takes ten to fifteen minutes; with a quick pass through the gallery, budget thirty to sixty. On a single day in Verona it is not a priority โ the Arena and San Zeno come first โ but it is an excellent second-day stop or rainy-afternoon detour, two minutes on foot from the square and the Torre dei Lamberti.
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A few steps above the vegetable market, behind a door nobody notices, hides one of the finest ceilings in Verona: three small connected rooms that painters covered completely around 1700, walls and vaults alike, until not a hand's breadth of plaster was left bare. This is the Chapel of the Notaries, taken over by the men of the city's most self-regarding profession as their own place of worship, and decorated with a budget worthy of that self-regard. The story starts in 1408, when the College of Notaries was granted the use of a chapel dedicated to San Zeno, Verona's patron, and promptly added San Daniele, patron of notaries, alongside him. The pointed arches and sail vaults are still that late-Gothic shell; everything painted on them is full-throated Baroque. The original decoration was lost in 1650, when the prisons installed on the floor above grew heavy enough to bring part of the ceiling down on it. The replacement cycle was finished in 1703 โ the date carried by the commemorative inscription โ by Alessandro Marchesini, Giambattista Bellotti, Sante Prunati and the Frenchman Louis Dorigny, with Andrea Zanoni painting most of the trompe-l'oeil framework. In 1723 a fire destroyed the Masseria tower overhead; the chapel came through almost untouched, and the tower was simply cut down and re-roofed just above the place of worship. Now the practical part, which is the part that matters most here. You cannot walk in from Piazza delle Erbe. The entrance is from Cortile Mercato Vecchio, up into the upper floor of the Palazzo della Ragione, and the chapel sits at the end of the route of the Galleria d'Arte Moderna Achille Forti โ meaning you buy the gallery ticket, six euros for an adult and free on the VeronaCard, and there is no separate chapel ticket. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00, last entry 17:30, closed Mondays. One warning worth heeding: the chapel doubles as one of the city's civil wedding rooms and is used for events, so the internal route can change at short notice and the room can be shut for an hour or two โ a quick call before you climb the stairs is never wasted. Is it worth it? If you like Baroque, or simply like rooms the crowds have not found, yes without hesitation: ten minutes covers the chapel itself, and it is far quieter than the Torre dei Lamberti that shares the same courtyard. If Verona is a single day for you, put it after the Arena, San Zeno and the Scaliger Tombs, not before. It sits in the middle of the pedestrian centre, minutes from the square's restaurants and their fish and vegetarian options, and it is easy with a family โ though be honest with yourself: there is nothing here to hold a small child for more than two minutes.
A complete Baroque cycle finished in 1703 by Marchesini, Bellotti, Sante Prunati and Louis Dorigny, covering every wall and vault of three small connected rooms.
Since 1408 this was the private place of worship of Verona's notaries, dedicated to San Zeno for the city and San Daniele for the profession, which explains the unexpected swagger of so small a space.
Metres from Piazza delle Erbe and the Torre dei Lamberti, yet often near-empty โ it sits at the end of the gallery route and most of the square's visitors never reach it.
Cortile Mercato Vecchio, Palazzo della Ragione, 37121 Verona, Italy