The Oratorio di San Giorgio was frescoed with the life stories of St George, St Lucy and St Catherine of Alexandria in jewel-like colour by Altichiero da Zevio and Jacopo Avanzi in 1378, and briefly used as a prison by Napoleon – who apparently missed the message of St George’s liberation from the torture wheel by avenging angels. Your ticket allows entry next door to the upstairs Scoletta del Santo, with dramatic Titian paintings that include a 1511 portrait of St Anthony calmly reattaching his own foot as an onlooker gasps, and a riveting parable, painted by Titian’s brother Francesco Vecellio, showing a doctor discovering a miser’s heart is missing, just as a neighbour pulls the bloody heart from a treasure chest.
