Chiesa di San Nicolò, Baroque church near Arena, Verona, Italy.

Chiesa di San Nicolò is a Baroque church built of brick and stone on a cruciform plan, with a single nave, side chapels, a short transept and a deep presbytery raised three steps behind a marble balustrade. Its neoclassical façade, moved here in the 1950s, has four fluted Ionic columns of giant order carrying a triangular tympanum, with the inscription D.O.M. IN HONOREM S. NICOLAI EPISCOPI over the main door. The planned dome was never built; a flat ceiling painted in trompe-l'œil stands in its place.

Construction began in 1627 under the direction of architect Lelio Pellesina, replacing an earlier Romanesque building that had stood on the site. The building took many decades to complete and was consecrated in the final years of the 17th century.

The name all'Arena comes from the nearby Roman amphitheatre, and the older form San Nicholai de Buchadarena refers to an underground passage to the Arena found during excavations. The first chapel on the right holds Antonio Balestra's altarpiece San Giovanni Battista nel deserto; the second has a painting by Orbetto. The crypt under the presbytery, dedicated to Christ the Redeemer, commemorates deliverance from the 1630 plague.

The church stands behind the Arena, on the piazza created in 1673 when the Theatines demolished the houses in front of the new façade. A ramp added in 2001 by architect Paola Bogoni gives step-free access at the side entrance. The crypt lies beneath the raised presbytery, reached from the old sacristy on its left side.

The dome visitors see is a trompe-l'œil painted on a flat ceiling: the planned dome was never built, and the stone cladding for the façade was never installed either. The low, stocky bell tower was likewise left unfinished, since a tall tower would have spoiled views of the nearby Arena.