Scuola Grande Di San Rocco

The Scuola Grande Di San Rocco and the homonym Church is a true marvel. Jacopo Tintoretto‘s Sistine chapel contains more than 60 paintings by renowned artists that spent more than 20 years creating one of the most impressive pictorial undertakings in the history of art.

The building, one of the most elegant examples of Venetian Renaissance architecture, was constructed between 1517 and 1560 to house one of the six Scuole Grandi, a religious fraternity set up to help the poor and sick.

The Brothers of San Rocco, having founded their School in May 1478 , had stipulated an initial agreement with the Friars Minor Conventual of the Frari for the use of an empty land behind the convent, to build their own site.

Thus a small church and a school had been built which were immediately abandoned. The Confraternity moved first to San Samuele and then to San Silvestro while the ruined church was being rebuilt and the modest Albergo made of walls and wood was being enlarged and embellished, the future current Scoletta. The view by Jacopo de’ Barbari (1500) depicts a small building which was already the result of two successive interventions: the first, in 1492, and the second in 1494.

The outcome of these expansion campaigns led to the construction of a two-storey building, with the entrance on the ground floor and the Chapter meeting room on the upper floor, similar to the typology of the buildings of the other Small Schools. The main facade on the square is plastered with a natural marmorino, punctuated and designed by the clear outlines of Istrian stone, doors and windows, in which space is created for the statue of the titular saint.

Over the course of twenty years, due to the growth in the number of brothers (in 1514 they had reached 500) and the importance of the Confraternity, the Scoletta was considered inadequate and in 1517 the construction of the Scuola Grande began .

After a radical restoration, the Scoletta is now used for temporary exhibitions. Together with the adjacent Church di San Rocco built by one of the architects of the Scuola a few years earlier, they form one ensemble with the most amazing displays of art you will ever see. More