Chapel of Saint Anthony
Chapel of St. Anthony
Chapel of St. Anthony
Audio transcription
In front of us is another gem of the church of San Fermo: the Chapel of Sant’Antonio, or chapel of Saint Anthony. It’s truly a ‘chapel within a chapel’: today, a clever system of movable panels lets us admire the original fourteenth-century decorations hidden beneath later seventeenth-century renovation.
Only thirty years after the death of Saint Anthony of Padua, the Franciscans built this chapel to honour him. In the sixteenth century, it was covered with marble and stucco and furnished with new altars and paintings. On the back wall, there is a panel by Liberale da Verona depicting Saint Anthony between Saints Augustine and Nicholas. The large frames feature two seventeenth-century paintings by Giovanni Locatelli depicting two scenes from the saint’s life and another by an unknown artist depicting The Ecstasy of Saint Anthony. The lunettes above contain The Vision of Saint Anthony and the Healing of the Infant of Portugal, by the painter Antonio Giarola. The cycle of fourteenth-century frescoes visible today features a beautiful Crucifixion on the back wall. On the left wall is a Risen Christ between two angels. The right wall is dedicated to the life of Saint Anthony of Padua: at the top, he is shown as an Augustinian friar witnessing the martyrdom of Franciscans in Morocco – a moment that inspired him to join their order; below, he preaches before Pope Gregory IX in 1230.
