The foundation of the present church is owed to the Della Scala family, who brought Augustinian hermit monks to Verona in 1262 so that they could be closer to the community and granted them permission to build a monastery, located at the time in the Capitani quarter of the Scaliger city.

The building activity, however, did not end, and in the following years the monastery's rooms continued to be expanded in order to accommodate the increasing number of monks who arrived there attracted by the great prestige the community boasted.

During the 18th century the building underwent several tamperings that affected the façade and the interior spaces, where a vaulted ceiling was made to hide the ancient trusses and a large arch dividing the chancel from the hall.

In the same years, just outside Verona there was already a community of Augustinian hermits who had arrived in the Ratherian period (late 10th century) and were offered to move to Sant'Eufemia (which had meanwhile fallen into such crisis that it was ruled by a single cleric named Zeno) in order to carry out their work of evangelization.

[8] The start of construction was not immediate since in the following years the Augustinians had to obtain, through purchases and donations, the land on which the buildings destined for their cenobitic life, such as refectory, parlor and chapter house, would later be erected.

[12] In 1325, with a papal bull issued by Pope John XII, a number of Veronese citizens were excommunicated who were found guilty of offending the Augustinians, further proof of the prestige of the convent and the protection it was afforded by the ecclesiastical authority.

[15] A new permission, granted by Mastino II della Scala on July 19, 1340, allowed the Augustinian monks to close off a street that cut their property in two, so that they could unite it and thus complete the construction of the building that still lacked an apse.

In the first decades of the century, the sacristy was restored and the high altar was decorated, which was embellished with three bronze panels by the Trentino sculptor Andrea Briosco, known as Il Riccio, no longer present in the church (in their place there are imitations today) because they were subject to Napoleonic confiscations.

[18] On February 26, 1601, Bishop Agostino Valier allowed the Augustinians to place a baptismal font inside the church, an uncommon privilege made possible thanks to the donation of Count Galeazzo Banda.

The arrival of Napoleon's troops was the final blow that disgraced the convent: in fact, the French imposed the closure of religious activities in order to turn the church into a military hospital, but not before emptying it of all its furnishings.

During the Veronese Easter of 1797 the church was attacked by a group of rioters who looted and plundered it, despite attempts by the prior of the convent to dissuade them; the action ended in bloodshed with deaths and injuries.

On either side of the portal, above corbels decorated with carved foliage, are two statues probably depicting warrior saints who originally must have been equipped with a sword or lance and holding a shield adorned with the three stars of the Lanfranchini army.

On the top of the portal is drawn an inflected cornice on which, at the upper end, is placed a statue of the titular saint of the church, depicted with a book in her hand and lions at her feet, as per traditional iconography.

The second, on the other hand, dates back to 1279 and is placed under the right mullioned window; it consists of a red Verona marble ark and belonged to Cavalcano dei Cavalcani but later passed to the Banda counts.

In the center of the cloister there is a puteal dating from 1533, the four faces of which are decorated on the corners with acanthus leaves on which are engraved the words “Ave Maria” and the christogram “IHS.”[38] The plan of the church has a single hall and is markedly longitudinal, with a transept endowed with arms of particularly shallow depth and a chancel raised two steps above the rest of the space, terminating in a five-sided, polygonal development apse.

In the center is an eighteenth-century style canvas depicting St. Paul between Saints Anthony Abbot and Ursula, whose author, Agostino Ugolini, proceeded to sign and date it “AUGUS.

[41] Having passed through the main doorway, heading toward the left side of the hall, one encounters hanging on the wall a canvas attributed to Felice Brusasorzi depicting the Crucifix with the Madonna, St. Mary Magdalene and St. John, present in St. Euphemia since at least 1854, the date of its first mention.

In the center of the altar is a wooden crucifix emerging from a dark background on which the painter Sante Prunati painted the figures of Mary and St. John absorbed in grief over Jesus' death.

With classical forms reminiscent of the work of the famous Veronese Renaissance architect Michele Sanmicheli, it houses an altarpiece, made by Bernardino India late in his life, depicting the Wedding of St.

[48] Finally, on the left side, before reaching the arch that divides the nave from the presbytery, there is a door leading to the sacristy, above which hangs a 1573 canvas by Paolo Farinati, who signed it “PAOLUS FARINA / TUS P. MDLXX/III,” depicting the Archangel St.

[48] In the left arm of the crossing is the baptismal font dating from 1601; placed here since 1968, when it was moved from its original location to the right of the main portal, it is made of red Verona marble on which simple moldings are carved.

[51] Embedded on the walls of the corridor are fragments of sepulchral seals and a marble plaque attesting to the bequest in favor of girls for marriage offered by parish priest Massimiliano Lanceni in 1782.

[52] Above the door hangs a canvas depicting a St. Michael the Archangel, the work of Paolo Farinati, as attested by the signature “Paulus Farina / tus P. MDLXXIII” discovered in 1950, which refutes the earlier erroneous attribution that indicated Pasquale Ottino as the author.

[53] In the right arm of the crossing is an interesting detached fresco, most likely by Martino da Verona, the Coronation of the Virgin, discovered on March 22, 1966 after the removal of the elevation of a piece of furniture and restored three years later; its sinopia is in the Spolverini Dal Verme chapel.

They are divided into several levels: in the first at the bottom one can recognize the phases of the late 14th-century period, by unknown authors who worked at the same time as the construction of the chapel, while in the later ones one can identify interventions that can be traced back to 1508 by Giovan Francesco Caroto, who went on to cover the previous frescoes.

Of the early series of frescoes, now partially damaged by time, a few can be seen on the lower right wall; among them a St. Dionysius, interpreted in his traditional iconography while supporting his own head with his hand, and an Archangel Raphael are recognizable.

Giovan Francesco was also the author of the chapel's altarpiece, now preserved at the Castelvecchio Civic Museum and replaced on site by a 1934 copy by Gaetano Miolato, in which in the central triptych the painter intended to depict the Three Archangels (Michael, Raphael, Gabriel).

[58][61][62] On the pilaster that separates the apse from the span of the chapel, the bas-relief with the coat of arms commemorating the marriage between Jacopo Dal Verme and Cia degli Ubaldini are from the early 15th century.

Initially it was also decorated with three bronze panels carved by Andrea Riccio in which he had depicted a Nativity, a Deposition and a Resurrection, now replaced by wooden copies since the originals were looted at the end of the 18th century by the French army during the Napoleonic occupation, when the abbey was turned into a military hospital.

[67] Of particular note is the elegant furniture of the sacristy composed of two cabinets placed on either side of the altar, decorated with a complex finial and made at the behest of prior Egidio Morosini in 1629, shortly before the outbreak of the plague of 1630 that scourged the city of Verona and the monastery.