The frescoed cycles of the fourteenth century in Padua

The historic center of Padua preserves, within its medieval walls, a priceless treasure, accumulated over almost a century: from 1302 to 1397, artists such as Giotto, Guariento di Arpo, Giusto de’ Menabuoi, Altichiero da Zevio, Jacopo Avanzi and Jacopo da Verona have embellished the city with expert brushstrokes and visionary genius, lending their services to the most important Paduan families. The Scrovegni and the Carraresi are just some of the most famous names linked to a cycle of frescoes that, between secular and ecclesiastical commissions, reformulated the medieval imagery of Padua during the 14th century. Eight sites host the frescoes in the city of Padua, linked as if in a single imaginary wall frescoed by a primarily thematic thread, of a biblical and allegorical, literary and scientific, but also technical-artistic nature: from the “father” Giotto Guariento, in fact, Giusto and the others will learn the style, the studies on perspective and color which, together with the humanistic taste for interdisciplinarity, will be brought to final completion only in the Renaissance.