School of the Holy, Religious museum in Padua, Italy

The Scuola del Santo, also called Scoletta, stands on the churchyard of the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua, beside the Oratory of Saint George. It has two stacked rooms: a ground-floor church built between 1427 and 1431, and the upper Sala Priorale added in 1504. A small 1736 structure by Giovanni Gloria links it to the Oratory, with a staircase to the upper hall.

The building was founded in the 15th century and was closely tied to the growing veneration of Saint Anthony in the city. Over subsequent centuries it became the seat of an important brotherhood and was decorated with religious artworks that remain visible today.

The upper hall, the Sala Priorale, was the archconfraternity's meeting room, and its walls carry a cycle of fifteen frescoes framed in gilded wood. The three Titian panels of 1511 show Anthony's miracles, including the newborn made to speak and the jealous husband; the raised arm of the wife in the latter is modelled in relief rather than painted. A 15th-century tempera on panel on the stair landing shows Anthony writing.

The Scuola stands on the churchyard of the Basilica of Saint Anthony, beside the Oratory of Saint George; the 1736 staircase by Giovanni Gloria links the ground-floor chapel to the upper Sala Priorale. The Sala Priorale is reached by that staircase, and its frescoes line the walls in gilded wooden frames. The small balcony over Piazza del Santo is where Pius VI in 1782, Pius VII in 1800 and John Paul II in 1982 blessed the crowd.

On the landing of Giovanni Gloria's 1736 staircase hangs a badly deteriorated 15th-century tempera on panel of unknown authorship, showing Saint Anthony writing at a walnut desk. Popes blessed the crowd below from the loggia over Piazza del Santo: Pius VI in 1782, Pius VII in 1800 and John Paul II in 1982, as two plaques record.