Scuola Grande di San Rocco

‘Venice’s Sistine Chapel’ was painted by Tintoretto over a 23-year period. Like Michelangelo, he worked alone without assistants; like Michelangelo he created a visionary cycle of paintings from the depths of the imagination.

History

Founded in 1478, the Scuola di San Rocco was dedicated to caring for the ill, especially those ill with plague. Bartolomeo Bon the Younger designed the new confraternity’s headquarters next to the church of San Rocco, though it was hardly completed when the Venetians nabbed the relics of St Roch from Montpellier. With subsequent outbreaks of plague, donations poured in, hoping to secure Roch’s aid, but also so enriching the Scuola that Bon’s building was given a beautiful, lively façade by Scarpagnino in 1549.