Basilica di Sant’Anastasia

Sant'Anastasia is the largest church in Verona, a Dominican basilica begun in 1290 and worked on for two centuries. Its facade was never finished, which is the first thing you notice and the least important.

Inside, the scale is the point: tall Gothic naves on huge columns of Verona marble, and a floor of red, white and grey stone laid in patterns.

The reason art historians come is a small fresco high in a chapel by the choir: Pisanello's St George and the Princess, painted around 1436-38 and one of the finest surviving works of International Gothic anywhere.

The front was never finished and never will be, so the building gives a passer-by almost nothing — the reason to come is entirely inside, and people walk past it daily without realising it is the largest church in Verona. Pisanello's Saint George is small and awkwardly placed high above an arch in a side chapel, and it is quite possible to leave without having found it. The single ticket cannot be booked ahead: it is sold only at the church door.

What is free

The exterior costs nothing — the great unfinished brick front on the piazza, and the flank running down towards the river.

Inside, the ticket is €4 (€8 for the four-church pass), waived for residents of Verona, its province and diocese, children under 11, members of religious orders, registered guides, journalists, military personnel, and a visitor with a disability plus one companion.

The boundary is the desk inside the door. The Pisanello fresco and the two gobbi holding the holy-water stoups are on the ticketed side of it.

It stands close to Ponte Pietra and a few minutes' walk from Piazza delle Erbe, so it is easy to combine with the centre.

Opening hours are seasonal and shorter on Sunday mornings, when Mass takes precedence.

Allow thirty to forty-five minutes. Bring coins for the chapel lighting -- the Pisanello is very hard to read otherwise.

The church is level and step-free at the main entrance and is among the more accessible of Verona's churches.

Shoulders and knees should be covered.

Sant'Anastasia charges a small admission and is covered by the Verona Card and the combined church ticket.

Wheelchair access is possible, stated plainly by Chiese Vive without the qualification it attaches to San Zeno on the same circuit. Free entry for a disabled visitor and their companion.

The floor helps: this is one wide, level Gothic hall rather than a church on several levels, and the famous things are reachable from it — the red Verona marble columns, the patterned stone floor, and the crouching figures carrying the holy water stoups just inside the door.

The exception is Pisanello's fresco, which is the reason art historians come and which sits high in a chapel by the choir. Seeing it properly is a matter of sightlines rather than steps, and binoculars help far more than anything else on this page.

Not specified by the operator, and not guessed: whether the threshold at the main door has a step.

An active church as well as a monument: keep quiet, stay out of services, and do not photograph people at prayer.

No flash. The Pisanello is a fragile fifteenth-century wall painting that has already lost a great deal; use the coin-operated lighting instead, which is there precisely for this.

Do not touch the gobbi, however tempting. The carving is visibly worn from centuries of hands.

The combined church ticket is what maintains these buildings. Buying it rather than a single entry spreads the money across churches that get far fewer visitors than this one.