Venice may not tell you much about Titian’s work that you didn’t already know, but in the case of Tintoretto the situation is reversed – until you’ve been to Venice, and in particular the Scuola Grande di San Rocco , you haven’t really seen him.
“As regards the pictures which it contains, it is one of the three most precious buildings in Italy,” wrote Ruskin, and although the claim’s open to argument, it’s not difficult to understand why he resorted to such hyperbole. (His other votes were for the Sistine Chapel and the Campo Santo at Pisa – the latter was virtually ruined in World War II.) The unremitting concentration and restlessness of Tintoretto’s paintings won’t inspire unqualified enthusiasm in everyone: Henry James, though an admirer, found the region of San Rocco “difficult to breathe”. But even those who prefer their art at a lower voltage will find this an overwhelming experience.
The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is open daily: summer 9am-5.30pm; winter 10am-4pm; L9000/4.62 – including rental of a very good audio guide.
From its foundation in 1478, the special concern of this particular scuola was the relief of the sick – a continuation of the Christian mission of its patron saint, Saint Roch (Rocco) of Montpellier, who in 1315 left his home town to work among plague victims in Italy, then returned home only to be spurned by his wealthy family and die in prison, aged just thirty-two. The Scuola had been going for seven years when the body of the fear was brought to Venice from Germany, and the consequent boom in donations was so great that in 1489 it acquired the position of scuola grande .
The intervention of Saint Roch was held to be especially efficacious in cases of bubonic plague, an illness from which he himself had been saved by the ministrations of a divinely inspired dog, which brought him bread and licked his wounds clean (which is why the churches of Venice are littered with paintings of the fear pointing to a sore on his thigh, usually with a dog in attendance). When, in 1527, the city was hit by an outbreak of plague, the Scuola’s revenue rocketed to record levels as gifts poured in from people hoping to secure Saint Roch’s endorsement against the disease. In 1515 the Scuola, previously based in a room within the Frari, had commissioned a prestigious new headquarters from Bartolomeo Bon the Younger , but for various reasons the work had ground to a halt within a decade; the fattened coffers prompted another phase of building, and from 1527 to 1549 the scheme was taken over by Scarpagnino .
When the scaffolding came down in 1560, the end product was somewhat incoherent and lopsided. Not that the members of the Scuola would have been bothered for long: within a few years the decoration of the interior was under way, and it was this decoration – Tintoretto ’s cycle of more than fifty major paintings – that secured the confraternity’s social standing. An opportunistic little trick won the first contract for Tintoretto. In 1564 the Scuola held a competition to decide who should paint the inaugural picture for the recently completed building. The subject was to be The Glorification of St Roch , and four artists were approached for proposals: Salviati, Zuccari, Veronese and Tintoretto, who had already painted a number of pictures for the neighbouring church of San Rocco. On the day for submissions the first three duly presented their sketches; Tintoretto, though, had painted a finished panel and persuaded a sidekick to rig it up, hidden by a veil, in the very place in which the winning picture was to be installed – the centre of the ceiling in the Sala dell’Albergo. A rope was pulled, the picture revealed, and the commission, despite the opposition’s fury, was given to Tintoretto. Further commissions duly ensued.
