The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is a confraternity or lay institution, founded in the fifteenth century, for the purposes of worship and charity. Its leaders were non-aristocratic citizens, but very active in trades and professions and often very wealthy. Tintoretto worked on the decoration of the various rooms of the Scuola for over 24 years (from 1564 to about 1588), attaining the very peak of his art here. The first work, the ceiling with Saint Roch in Glory in the Sala dell’Albergo, was donated in 1564 by Jacopo to the confraternity that welcomed him among its members only the following year. In the following two years, he completed the decoration of the room, with the breathtaking Crucifixion and other episodes in the Passion of Christ (The Road to Calvary, Christ before Pilate, Ecce Homo). About eight years later, Tintoretto was commissioned to decorate the ceiling of the huge Sala Capitolare or Chapter Room with episodes from the life of Moses, surrounded by other Old Testament stories. Subsequently, he himself proposed completing the decoration of the Scuola, promising to deliver three paintings a year for the rest of his life. This is how the decoration of the Sala Capitolare was completed with episodes from the life of Christ, and then of the Sala Terrena (or Ground Floor Hall) with stories from the life of Mary, as well as the opening events of the New Testament, like The Massacre of the Innocents, The Adoration of the Magi and The Flight into Egypt. All these subjects were interpreted with enormous compositional freedom and in an unconventional, dynamic and innovative way.
9.30 a.m. – 5.30 p.m. (ticket office, 9.30 a.m. – 5 p.m.). Closed 1 January, 25 December.
www.scuolagrandesanrocco.org