This masonry church, dedicated to saints Philip and James dates to 1276, was built by the Augustinian Eremites in 1276, replacing a wood-roofed structure dedicated to the same saints, noted here as early as 1218. As approved by the papal bull of April 9, 1256, the amalgamation of various orders of Eremites favoured the rise of the newly combined Congregation of St. Augustine. Between 1242 and 1245 the Eremites had already founded the Monastery of St. Mary of Charity, in the area of the former Roman arena. Among its duties the order filled a cultural role, and its rapport with the University of Padua justified that the Commune would provide them with financial assistance. The newly erected church initially had a thatched roof. In 1306, the architect-enzegnere Brother James of the Eremites provided it with a ship-keel vaulted roof, using timber remaining from the construction of the roof at the Palazzo della Ragione. Towards the third decade of the 1300s, artists from Venice were called to paint the first cycle of frescos in the Dotto Chapel, beside the Capella Maggiore. These included a Hierarchy of Angels, later re-frescoed by Altichiero. In the 1360s, Guariento executed the decoration of three walls of the same chapel, illustrating the lives of saints Phillip, James and Augustine. Andrea Mantegna again depicted the lives of the saints, in the decoration of the Ovetari Chapel. Fragments of frescos in the Cortellieri Chapel, including Giusto de' Menaboui's Virtue and The Liberal Arts, recall the golden days of this church, in the Carraresi period, when it was a vital cultural centre of Padua. During the 20th century the church suffered severe damage from bombardment.
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