At only 17 years old, Mantegna accepted his first commission, fresco cycles of the "Lives of Saints James and Christopher" for the Ovetari Chapel in the transept of the church of the Eremitani, near the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Unfortunately, the building was mostly destroyed during World War II, and they are only known from photographs which reveal an already highly developed sense of perspective and a knowledge of antiquity, for which the ancient University of Padua had become well known, early in the 15th century. 's last work in Padua was a monumental San Zeno altarpiece, created for the abbot of the Basilica of San Zeno, Verona from 1457 to 1459. This polyptych of which the predella panels are particularly notable for the handling of landscape elements, was to influence the further development of Renaissance art in Northern Italy.