The Scuola Grande di San Marco is a building in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, designed by the well-known Venetian architects

Pietro Lombardo Monument of the Doge Pietro Mocenigo 1481 :''Pietro Lombardo is also the Italian version of the name of the theologian Peter Lombard.'' Pietro Lombardo (1435–1515) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect; born in Carona (Ticino), he ...

Mauro Codussi Mauro Codussi (1440–1504) was an Italian architect of the early-Renaissance, active mostly in Venice. The name is also rendered as ''Coducci''. He was one of the first to bring the classical style of the early renaissance to Venice to replace th ...

, and

Bartolomeo Bon Bartolomeo Bon (also spelled Buon; died after 1464) was an Italian sculptor and architect from Campione d'Italia. His career spans the transition between Venetian Gothic architecture and the rather late start of Venetian Renaissance architecture ...

. It was originally the home to one of the

Scuole Grandi of Venice The Scuole Grandi (literally 'Great Schools', plural of ) were confraternity or sodality institutions in Venice, Italy. They were founded as early as the 13th century as charitable and religious organizations for the laity. These institutions had ...

, or six major

confraternities A confraternity (; ) is generally a Christian voluntary association of laypeople created for the purpose of promoting special works of Christian charity or piety, and approved by the Church hierarchy. They are most common among Catholics, L ...

, but is now the city's hospital. It faces the Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, one of the largest squares in the city.

History

The edifice was built by the Confraternity of San Marco in 1260 to act as its seat. In 1485, however, it was destroyed by a large fire, and rebuilt in the following twenty years under a new design by

, with a fund established by the members. The façade, a masterwork with delicately decorated niches and pilasters, and with white or polychrome marble statues, was later completed by

. While decorated with the polished marble elements of

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

classicism, the proliferation of arches and niches adds a retrogressive

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

flavor, an architectural feature of many conservative Venetian styles. One of the most notable aspects of the façade is the use of

trompe-l'œil ; ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional surface. , which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving p ...

archways and portals on the ground floor, all executed in different types of marble. Between 2000 and 2005, the façade underwent conservation treatments funded by Save Venice Inc., the Getty Grant Program, and other donors. Three of the greatest Italian explorers of the fifteenth century who left records of their travels were members of the Scuola:

Ambrogio Contarini Ambrogio Contarini (1429–1499) was a Venetian nobleman, merchant and diplomat known for an account of his travel to Iran, where he met Giosafat Barbaro.Bertotti, Filippo (1992), "Contarini, Ambrogio", in: ''Encyclopædia Iranica'', Vol. VI, F ...

Giosafat Barbaro Giosafat Barbaro (also spelled ''Giosaphat'' or ''Josaphat''; 1413–1494) was a member of the Venetian Barbaro family. He was a diplomat, merchant, explorer and travel writer.

, and Alvise da Mosto.“Venetian narrative painting in the age of Carpaccio”, Patricia Fortini Brown, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988., pg. 7

Jacopo Tintoretto Jacopo Robusti (late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594), best known as Tintoretto ( ; , ), was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the ...

furnished the Scuola with three paintings '' Miracle of the Slave'' (also known as ''The Miracle of St. Mark'', 1548), St Mark's Body Brought to Venice, painted between 1562 and 1566, both paintings are currently housed in the

Gallerie dell'Accademia The Gallerie dell'Accademia is a museum gallery of pre-19th-century art in Venice, northern Italy. It is housed in the Scuola della Carità on the south bank of the Grand Canal, within the sestiere of Dorsoduro. It was originally the gallery o ...

, and Finding of the body of St Mark also painted between 1562 and 1566, an now held in the

Pinacoteca di Brera The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, an outgrowth of the cultural program of ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Palma Vecchio Palma Vecchio ( – 30 July 1528), born Jacopo Palma, also known as Jacopo Negretti, was a Venetian painter of the Italian High Renaissance. He is called Palma Vecchio in English and Palma il Vecchio in Italian ("Palma the Elder") to distingu ...

also contributed to the cycle with '' Storm at Sea''. In 1819 it became an

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ** Austria-Hungary ** Austria ...

military hospital. It is now a civil hospital. Since 2013 it is part of the Polo Museale della Scuola Grande di San Marco.

References

External links

*
Scuola Grande di San Marco
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scuola Grande Di San Marco Renaissance architecture in Venice 1260 establishments in Europe 13th-century establishments in the Republic of Venice

Marco Marco may refer to: People Given name * Marco (actor) (born 1977), South Korean model and actor Surname * Georg Marco (1863–1923), Romanian chess player of German origin * Jindřich Marco (1921–2000), Czechoslovak photographer and numismat ...

Scuole Grandi of Venice