BASILICA OF SAN ZENO, Interior

The entrance to the Basilica of San Zeno is on the left, next to the tower.

The first part you come to is the beautiful four-sided Romanesque-Gothic cloister, supported by slender double columns.

A pavilion protruding from the cloister was once used by the monks to wash themselves.

Along the galleries, you can see fragments of sculptures and frescoes, and there is an attractive view of the side of the Basilica, which is entered through a side door.

What you’ll find immediately striking about the interior is the bright light that floods throughout the huge edifice, supported by large pillars and topped with an original wooden ceiling shaped like the keel of a ship, dating to the late 14th century.

On the pillars, on the inside of the facade and along the walls, you can admire numerous frescoes from the 13th and 14th centuries, almost all of them anonymous, which document the evolution of painting in Verona in the late Middle Ages. The huge, popular figure of Saint Christopher, on the right wall, is particularly striking.  

Take a look at the stairs that descend into the huge Romanesque crypt, supported by slender columns topped with beautiful capitals: a gate protects the recent altar in which the body of Saint Zeno is kept....