Photo credits: who photographed the Scrovegni Chapel
Nine photographs on this site are somebody else’s work, taken from Wikimedia Commons and credited there to eight different names. Seven of them carry Creative Commons licences that let anyone reuse the file and require that the maker is named. This page names every one, links each back to its own file page on Commons, and states the licence it is used under. It is a licence condition being met rather than a courtesy.
Which pictures here are real, and which are props
Only the ones in the table below are photographs of this chapel or its ground. Everything else you will see on this site — ground pigment in a dish, a lump of blue-flecked stone, a plasterer’s trowel, brushes in a jar, a blank ticket on a stone ledge, an empty bench beside a closed door, worn flagstones, green shutters, an arcaded street at first light — was made for the site. Not one of those pictures contains a fresco, a chapel, a vault or a figure, and not one is captioned as though it did.
That line is drawn harder here than on most sites and it is worth saying why. The subject of this site is a cycle painted by a named artist between 1303 and 1305, in one room, and those paintings are the reason anybody comes. A made-up picture of a medieval fresco, placed under a heading with Giotto’s name on it, would not be an illustration of Giotto. It would be a forgery of Giotto with a caption. So the made pictures illustrate the arguments — the pigment, the plaster, the timed ticket, the wait outside a door that opens once — and the photographs do all of the identifying.
Where the nine appear
Six of them run in one strip on the home page: the chapel from the Giardini dell’Arena, which is a plain brick box with almost nothing on the outside; the barrel vault; the Lamentation in detail; the Universal Judgement; one of the grey Virtues; and what is left of the Roman arena the chapel was built beside and named after. That strip is three columns wide, which is why it holds a multiple of three rather than all of them. The rest sit on the pages they belong to: the Kiss of Judas and the Presentation of the Virgin on the frescoes, and the Eremitani cloister on tickets, because the same ticket covers it. Every one carries its credit visibly on the page it appears on as well as in the table here.
A note on two of the credits
Two of the nine are not under a Creative Commons licence at all but in the public domain, and they are credited here anyway. One of those two is credited on its file page to the painter rather than to whoever photographed the wall, which is a quirk of how Commons records a photograph of a very old painting. I have left it as the file page gives it rather than improving it, because a credit line invented by me is worth less than an odd one I can link you to.
Every photograph, its maker and its licence
Every row here is generated out of the one list that also decides which file lands on which page. That is the only reliable way to stop a caption and its picture parting company after somebody swaps an image. Each file name links through to its own page on Commons, where the licence is set out in full.
| What it shows | Where it appears | File on Wikimedia Commons | Credited to | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The chapel from the Giardini dell'Arena: a plain brick box with almost nothing on the outside | the home page | L08 207 Padua, Cappella degli Scrovegni.jpg | Falk2 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| The barrel vault, painted as a blue sky full of stars | the home page | Padova - Cappella degli Scrovegni - 2023-09-27 22-56-26 007.jpg | Bramfab | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| The Lamentation, in detail: the Virgin holding her son's face | the home page | Compianto sul Cristo morto (dettaglio) (Scrovegni).jpg | Gennadii Saus i Segura | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| The Universal Judgement, which fills the wall you turn round to see as you leave | the home page | Last Judgement - Capella degli Scrovegni - Padua 2016.jpg | José Luiz | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| One of the Virtues, painted in grey to look like carved stone | the home page | Capella degli Scrovegni (Padova) jm56829.jpg | joergens.mi | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
| What is left of the Roman arena the chapel was built beside, and named after | the home page | Roman Arena 10-20 2109.jpg | Chris Light | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| The Kiss of Judas, with the two faces almost touching | the frescoes | Kiss of Judas by Giotto.jpg | Filo gèn' | public domain |
| The Presentation of the Virgin, on the north wall | the frescoes | Presentation of the Virgin - Capella dei Scrovegni.jpg | Giotto | public domain |
| The Eremitani museum cloister, which the same ticket covers | tickets | Museo d´Arte Medioevale e Moderna (Padova) jm56863.jpg | joergens.mi | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
If you want to reuse one
Go to Commons for it rather than saving the copy served from here. The file page is where the licence lives and where the wording of the attribution it demands is written down, and CC BY-SA adds a further condition: whatever you build out of the image has to travel under the same terms. This page hands you no permission of its own. It is a record of what several photographers permitted, and of this site keeping its half of that.
If you made one of these and would rather it were not on this site, say so (here) and it is gone the same day.
Frequently asked questions
Are the pictures of the Scrovegni Chapel on this site real photographs?
The ones in the table are: the chapel from outside, the star-painted vault, the Lamentation, the Universal Judgement, one of the grey Virtues, the Roman arena alongside, the Kiss of Judas, the Presentation of the Virgin, and the Eremitani cloister. Every other picture on this site is a still life made for it — pigment, plaster, brushes, a blank ticket, a bench, flagstones, shutters, an arcade — and not one of them contains a fresco, a chapel or a figure.
Why are there no made-up pictures of the frescoes?
Because a manufactured image of a medieval fresco, printed under a heading with Giotto's name on it, would be a forgery rather than an illustration. This site is about one room and one cycle. Anything here that shows the paintings is a real photograph of them, credited, and linked back to its own file page.
Do I have to credit a Creative Commons photograph?
For CC BY and CC BY-SA, yes: naming the maker is a condition of the licence rather than a courtesy, and CC BY-SA also asks that anything you derive from the image travels under the same terms. Public-domain files ask for nothing, and the ones here are credited anyway. Each file page on Commons states exactly what its own licence requires.
Can I use the made pictures from this site?
Please do not. They were made for these pages and they are props rather than photographs of anything: a dish of pigment, a trowel, brushes in a jar, a blank ticket, an empty bench, worn flagstones, closed shutters, an empty arcade. They illustrate arguments this site makes and they would illustrate nothing anywhere else.