Description
The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is Tintoretto's masterpiece in Venice: a building in the San Polo district, next to the Frari, whose halls are covered with dozens of enormous canvases by the same painter. Tintoretto worked here from 1564 to 1588, and for Venice the result is worth what the Sistine Chapel is for Rome.
But what was a “Scuola”? No desks and no teachers: it was a confraternity of laymen devoted to charity. The one of San Rocco was founded in 1478 and by 1480 was already a Scuola Grande.
The credit went above all to its saint. Roch, born in Montpellier, had cared for plague victims and was invoked against epidemics. In 1485 his body arrived right here, and the confraternity grew still more.
In 1517 the first stone of the new headquarters was laid. The work lasted about fifty years and passed through four architects, among them Scarpagnino, who gave it the facade with columns and the great staircase.
There are two halls, one per floor, plus the Sala dell'Albergo. On the ground floor Tintoretto told the life of Mary and the childhood of Jesus: the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt.
Upstairs, in the Sala Capitolare, the ceiling has twenty-one panels from the Old Testament, from the creation of Adam and Eve to the sacrifice of Isaac. The walls tell the New Testament, from the Baptism to the Last Supper.
In the Sala dell'Albergo the Passion is painted, with a large Crucifixion. Here too is the Christ Carrying the Cross, a painting of uncertain attribution between Titian and Giorgione.
On the walls and cupboards of the presbytery are mounted twenty-four wooden bas-reliefs by Giovanni Marchiori, carved between 1741 and 1743, on the life of St Roch.
On the staircase are displayed two large 1600s canvases on the plague, by Antonio Zanchi and Pietro Negri. The first is considered one of the peaks of Venetian Baroque painting.
On the staircase, in the 1600s, the large canvases by Zanchi and Negri were placed, while the cupola was frescoed by Giovanni Antonio Fumiani with Charity. In the Sala dell'Albergo there are also an Annunciation by Titian and two canvases by Tiepolo, with Abraham and the Angels and Hagar and Ishmael.
Don't miss
• The ceiling of the Sala Capitolare.
• The Crucifixion.
• Marchiori's bas-reliefs.
• The Christ Carrying the Cross.
Did you know?
• The Treasury Room, opened in 1899, was closed during the First World War and reopened only in 2009.
But what was a “Scuola”? No desks and no teachers: it was a confraternity of laymen devoted to charity. The one of San Rocco was founded in 1478 and by 1480 was already a Scuola Grande.
The credit went above all to its saint. Roch, born in Montpellier, had cared for plague victims and was invoked against epidemics. In 1485 his body arrived right here, and the confraternity grew still more.
In 1517 the first stone of the new headquarters was laid. The work lasted about fifty years and passed through four architects, among them Scarpagnino, who gave it the facade with columns and the great staircase.
There are two halls, one per floor, plus the Sala dell'Albergo. On the ground floor Tintoretto told the life of Mary and the childhood of Jesus: the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt.
Upstairs, in the Sala Capitolare, the ceiling has twenty-one panels from the Old Testament, from the creation of Adam and Eve to the sacrifice of Isaac. The walls tell the New Testament, from the Baptism to the Last Supper.
In the Sala dell'Albergo the Passion is painted, with a large Crucifixion. Here too is the Christ Carrying the Cross, a painting of uncertain attribution between Titian and Giorgione.
On the walls and cupboards of the presbytery are mounted twenty-four wooden bas-reliefs by Giovanni Marchiori, carved between 1741 and 1743, on the life of St Roch.
On the staircase are displayed two large 1600s canvases on the plague, by Antonio Zanchi and Pietro Negri. The first is considered one of the peaks of Venetian Baroque painting.
On the staircase, in the 1600s, the large canvases by Zanchi and Negri were placed, while the cupola was frescoed by Giovanni Antonio Fumiani with Charity. In the Sala dell'Albergo there are also an Annunciation by Titian and two canvases by Tiepolo, with Abraham and the Angels and Hagar and Ishmael.
Don't miss
• The ceiling of the Sala Capitolare.
• The Crucifixion.
• Marchiori's bas-reliefs.
• The Christ Carrying the Cross.
Did you know?
• The Treasury Room, opened in 1899, was closed during the First World War and reopened only in 2009.