San Zeno Altarpiece (Mantegna)

The San Zeno Altarpiece is a polyptych altarpiece by the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna created around 1456–1459. It remains in situ in the Basilica di San Zeno, the main church of the Northern Italian city of Verona. Mantegna's style mixes Greco-Roman classical themes along with Christian subjects in this altarpiece. The central panel, along with the three paintings that comprise the predella, were taken in 1797 by the French. While the main, central scene was returned by the French to Verona in 1815, the three predella paintings in Verona today are copies, since the original ones remain in France at the Louvre (Crucifixion) and in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tours (Resurrection and Agony in the Garden). The paintings are made with tempera on panel; not oil as mistakenly identified in one source.