In a side chapel of this church there are frescoes of the Giottesque school, painted in the fourteenth century by masters who came from Padua. It is the furthest north that Giotto's revolution reached, brought by people who had seen it close up: to Bolzano, that is a German-speaking city at the foot of the Alps, where nobody expects them.
What to see
The chapel of Saint John holds the best cycle, with the stories of the saints painted in scenes set inside architecture, the figures moving in space: it is the lesson of Padua applied up here. Another chapel and the cloister keep further frescoes, from different periods, which let you follow how painting changed as it crossed the mountains.
The church is of the thirteenth century, Gothic, and when it was built it stood outside the town, among the vegetable gardens the friars grew between the two rivers. Today it is right in the centre, a few steps from piazza Walther. In 1944 bombing badly damaged the complex, and what you see is partly the result of restoration.
Visiting
The church is in piazza Domenicani, five minutes from the cathedral and the station; free entry, with hours tied to services, and the frescoed chapel may have limited opening: worth asking. Half an hour.
Our editors' tip
Look at the frescoes thinking about geography: between Padua and Bolzano there are mountains, and in the fourteenth century that meant weeks of travel. That a workshop of painters moved up here with that new way of painting tells you how fast ideas circulated, far faster than we imagine.