Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista

The entrance to the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista

The Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista is located in the Santa Croce district on the Rio Marin, approximately two hundred metres from its junction with the Grand Canal at the Ponte Scalzi.

The Scuola was founded in 1261. It achieved prominence in 1369 when it acquired the "relic of the true cross" from the King of Jerusalem, a French mercenary named Philippe de Méziéres.

The Scuola still displays this relic on the oratory altar in the Hall of the Cross.

The entrance to the Scuola is through an exquisite marble portal designed and decorated with an intricate leaf-spray by Pietro Lombardo in 1478. The semi-circular pediment and crowning eagle were added twenty years later by Bartolomeo Bon.

The interior of the Scuola was redesigned by Mauro Codussi in the 1490s. Codussi incorporated a grand staircase with two converging wings which terminates in the spectacularly vast Sala di San Giovanni.

The Scuola once housed a cycle of nine pictures, inspired by the relic of the Holy Cross, painted by Gentile Bellini, Bastiani, Carpaccio and others. These paintings were removed to the Accademia after the French invasion of 1797.

Twenty-one views of Venice by Titian, which formerly graced the ceiling of the Sala d'Albergo (boardroom), were also removed at the same time.

The Procession of the Sacred Relic of the Holy Cross by Gentile Bellini (1496) Accademia, Venice

 Presentation of the Sacred Relic of the Holy Cross by Bastiani (1494) Accademia, Venice

The Sala di Giovanni still houses a cycle of paintings by Massari, Cignaroli and Domenico Tintoretto featuring scenes from the life of the Apostle Saint John.

These pictures are not for the squeamish. They include a horrific depiction of Saint John being boiled alive in a cauldron of hot water and of several unfortunates being crushed by falling masonry during the collapse of the Temple of Ephesus.

The ceiling of the Sala di Giovanni is also decorated by a feverishly apocalyptic 18th century Day of Judgement.

After Venice was incorporated into the Austrian Empire in 1806, plans were made to dismantle the marble floors, staircase and portal and to transport them to Vienna.

However, sufficient funds were raised by public subscription in order to buy back the Scuola from the Austrians who had confiscated it.

The Scuola is not generally open to the public.

 

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