Enrico degli Scrovegni

Enrico Scrovegni was a Paduan money-lender who lived around the time of Giotto and Dante.

There is a tradition that he hired Giotto to atone for the sin of usury, although there is debate about whether this idea has any foundation.

Dante placed his father in the Seventh Circle of Hell for his notoriously ill-gotten gains, and Enrico himself was a moneylender on a grand scale.

Against the idea that he founded the chapel as an act of atonement may be cited the fact that it was a very sumptuous commission for his own personal use, attached to the grand palace that he built for himself.

In 1320 Enrico Scrovegni fled the wars and civil strife that plagued Padua at the time, and settled in Venice.