In 1517 Venice ordered every building within a mile of Verona's walls to be levelled, to leave a clear field for the artillery. One thing survived that destruction: a low wall with a fresco, a Madonna and Child between two saints. People began coming to pray before that piece of plaster left standing, and the bishop decided to build a church around it.
What to see
The design was entrusted to Michele Sanmicheli, the architect then remaking the city's defences. Work began in 1559, the year he died, and went on for thirty years; the fresco was set behind the high altar while the site was still open. The plan is central, with the lantern tower and the portico running round.
Between Sanmicheli's drawing and what was built there are differences: Vasari wrote that the work had been maimed in several places by the meanness and poor judgement of those supervising it. The church was later restored after an earthquake and enlarged in the nineteen-thirties, taking the look it has now.
Visiting
The church is in the San Michele Extra district, on the eastern edge of Verona, ten minutes by car from the centre; free entry with hours tied to services. Half an hour.
Our editors' tip
Go behind the high altar and look at the fresco: it is a fragment of wall that escaped a military demolition, and everything else, the dome, the columns, the fifty years of building, exists to protect that piece of plaster. It is the relation between an object and its container turned perfectly upside down.
