The Scuola Grande dei Carmini

The San Margherita facade of the Scuola Grande dei Carmini

The Scuola Grande dei Carmini is located in the Dorsoduro district on the north bank of the Rio di San Barnaba, a short distance from its junction with the Grand Canal.

The Carmelite Order was founded in 1281 by the English priest San Simone Stock who experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary on Mount Carmelo in Palestine. He claimed that the Virgin gave him a scapular and instructed him in certain secret rituals.

Five years later the Carmelite Order, which is dedicated to the adoration of the Virgin Mary, founded a confraternity in Venice which prospered and received official recognition in 1594.

In 1626 the architect Francesco Cantello was commissioned to supervise the expansion of the Order's premises in the Campo dei Carmini.

In 1668 the Order acquired an adjoining building, a pharmacy, which fronted onto another square, the Campo San Margherita. Baldassare Longhena, the foremost architect of his day, was commissioned to redesign both the new and the old facade and to incorporate them within one unified structure.

The first storey of the facade on the Campo dei Carmini consists of an ashlar wall constructed in white Istrian stone with architrave windows and gabled porches; it is overlapped by the classical columns, windows and pediments of the second storey. The third storey possesses a row of narrow windows framed by round arches and separated by Corinthian columns.

The first tier of the two-storey façade on the Campo San Margherita comprises two high-arched doorways, symmetrically arranged amidst a series of tall narrow windows divided by twin pilasters. The second storey consists of a row of similar windows also separated by double pilasters.

The interior of the scuola possesses an imposing double-ramped staircase designed by Longhena and completed, after his death in 1682, by Antonio Gaspari.

The focal point of the grand staircase is the Sala Capitolare which was first decorated by Domenico Bruni between 1664 and 1674.

Giovan Battista Tiepolo was commissioned to decorate the ceiling of the Sala Capitolare in 1739. He deleted the previous frescoes by  Alessandro Padovanino and replaced them with nine spectacular canvasses.

La Vergine in Gloria, Tiepolo (circa 1739), Scuola Grande dei Carmini, Venice

The central canvass depicts the vision of San Simeone Stock on Mount Carmelo. Mary is shown as a powerful matriarch rising from a spiral of clouds amidst a group of adoring angels.

Each of the remaining eight canvasses depicts one of the virtues embodied by Mary who is portrayed as a melancholic figure with an oval face, heavy eyes, full lips and a prominent nose.

These physical imperfections are unusual since they show the Virgin  as an ordinary woman instead of a divine and flawless being.

UNESCO provided emergency funds for the restoration of the canvasses after they were attacked by woodworm in 2002.

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