This book is divided into two parts, the first presenting new evidence and reconstructions of the chapel's design and early history; the second offering new interpretations of Giotto's frescoes. Appendices present original sources, all of which are newly discovered, unpublished or previously published in inaccessible editions. An outline of the early history of the Scrovegni family and the career of the chapel's patron, Enrico Scrovegni, introduces the first part of the book. New evidence is presented discounting the theory that Enrico built the chapel in restitution of his father's sins and the fullest biography of the patron yet published is provided. The Arena Chapel is placed in the context of a larger project to create a prestigious suburban domain within the Arena site. The author also shows how various functions were envisaged and changed for the chapel during the years when it was designed and constructed. The chapel's additional role as a confraternal oratory is confirmed by analysis of new evidence relating to the involvement of the Cavalieri Gaudenti. A further role for the chapel as a focus of civic cult is also explored.

It is argued that the chapel's varied functions played an important part in determining the form of the building and the content of its frescoes. A complete reconstruction of the appearance of the Arena Chapel at the time of its consecration in 1305 forms the basis for an entirely new understanding of Giotto's frescoes. Giotto was the architect of the Arena Chapel; architecture and decoration were completely integrated in his design. Changes in the design brief during the period 1300-1305 prevented the full realisation of his design. Some of the paintings now seen in the Arena Chapel, which have always been attributed to Giotto, are not in fact by him. Several independent masters worked under Giotto's direction. He headed a flexibly-organised workshop. Part II is introduced by a discussion of the frescoes that would be encountered by visitors to the Arena Chapel.

These frescoes were deliberately placed in these positions by Giotto in order to further a process of liminal transformation upon entry into sacred space. Giotto employed radically new compositional devices to evoke correspondences between the pictured protagonists in their fictive environments, and viewers in the real environment of the chapel. The author further pursues the implications of the Arena Chapel's serving as both a household chapel and one which served a wider public, suggesting that the frescoes offered diverse constituencies an ideological blueprint for social, economic and political harmony and argues against the prevalent view that frescoes have an 'anti-usury programme', suggesting instead that they promote a benevolent view of a money-based economy and the role of the business class in urban society. Contemporary devotional texts and secular conduct manuals are analysed to establish the ideological contexts within which viewers' meditations might be structured according to status, vocation and gender. The implications of the chapel's function as the oratory of the Cavalieri Gaudenti are examined, showing how there existed a sub-set of images within Giotto's frescoes which can be understood as a pictorial programme devised for this group, with the intention to foster a sense of corporate identity. It is likely to be the earliest surviving such programme in medieval Europe. Finally, it is argued that the original design of frescoes in the upper part of the chancel arch wall, was intended to effect a transformation of viewer experience on the Feast of the Annunciation Sound, light and image were incorporated into a synaesthesic spectacle, presaging the Baroque. These effects were employed in the service of the civic cult of the Annunciate Virgin, and Enrico Scrovegni's patronage of that cult was intended to enhance his position within Paduan society.