page_title: San Nicolò all'Arena, Verona
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: San Nicolò all'Arena, Verona / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: San Niccolò all'Arena, Verona
context_page_description: San Nicolò all'Arena is a Roman Catholic parish church in the historic centre of Verona, Italy dedicated to Saint Nicholas. It is located close to the Arena, a well-preserved 1st century AD Roman amphitheatre. The present Baroque building was constructed between 1627 and 1683 on the site of an earlier Romanesque church which had existed since the 12th century or earlier. The church's façade remained incomplete until the neoclassical façade of the church of San Sebastiano was relocated to San Nicolò in the 1950s, after the former church was destroyed during World War II.
context_section_description: The present church is built in the Baroque style, while the relocated façade is neoclassical. The latter has four fluted Ionic columns of a giant order which support a triangular tympanum. The main doorway is located in the centre, and this is surmounted by an inscription which reads D.O.M. IN HONOREM S. NICOLAI EPISCOPI. There are two smaller portals which are surmounted by pediments, and above them there are empty niches and decorations of festoons.
  The church is built out of brick and stone. It has a cruciform plan with a single nave and side chapels, a short transept and a deep presbytery. One of the chapels has the painting San Giovanni Battista nel deserto (St John the Baptist in the desert) by Antonio Balestra as its altarpiece.
  Below the presbytery there is the crypt which has three naves with barrel vaulted roofs separated by rows of low arches supported by pillars. The church has a bell tower which is located at the rear of the building near the sacristy. This is low and stocky, and it was never completed since a large bell tower would have had a negative visual impact on the nearby Arena.
  A dome was planned for the building but this was never built, and in its place there is a flat ceiling with a trompe-l'œil simulating a dome.
caption: The trompe-l'œil painting of the dome
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