Scuole

This page is an overview of all the scuole in Venice. For a typical scuola, see Scuola'.

Often referred to in English as confraternities, scuole were Catholic organizations that members could join for the purposes of devotion, charity, and community within a certain identity group. There are two different types of scuole, the Scuole Piccole and the Scuole Grandi. There are 63 known scuole located in Venice, which can be seen in the map to the right. Although no scuole are active in Venice, most of these buildings today have been secularized and reused.

History

As the city of Venice expanded and developed, the size of the convents also increased. As staples in the community, providing care for the sick and a gathering place for citizens, affluent families were apt to send their children to live in monastic orders. However, civilians began to abuse the religious system, primarily sending daughters to join nunneries to avoid paying a dowry to a prospective husband and his family. Although this provided an influx of nuns, this population did not consist of individuals who would regularly be admitted to the nunneries, which reflected poorly on the churches and monastic orders. In response to this misuse of convents, in 1810, Napoleon demolished 6 convents in Venice and reused others as army barracks and prisons. Although drastic, the invasion of convents helped return respect and power to the convents, replacing irresponsible unfit nuns, with devout ones.

Adaptive Reuse

Due to the population shift and decline in religious importance within Venice many convents have been renovated and reused for other purposes to accommodate the needs of the city. As the city adapts to host more tourists, most of the convents in Venice have been renovated to be used as buildings such as hotels, museums and government buildings, and schools among many other uses. Only 14% of convents in Venice are actually still used convents, which can be seen in the chart to the right. This chart displays the adaptive reuse of the 59 known convents in Venice.

The simple layout of convents makes reuse and renovation fairly easy. Convents generally have fairly large and open rooms on the first floor with much smaller and larger quantity of rooms on the upper levels. This arrangement is ideal for modern uses of buildings such as hospitals, museums, and prisons. The structural conversion of these rooms is fairly simple, however it is more difficult to update utilities such as electricity and plumbing while still maintaining the historic and cultural integrity of the building.

Even the largest convents in the city have been renovated for other purposes. The 

Former Convent of Santi Giovanni e Paolo

, which once housed the Dominican order, is now used as the main hospital in Venice, located in Cannaregio. The convent can be seen in the picture above. Furthermore, the 

Convent of the Frari

 (pictured to the right) is now used the state archive, replacing the former Franciscan order.