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 grandi and the scuole piccole. There are 63 known scuole located in Venice, which can be seen in the map to the right. Today, there are four scuole that remain active in Venice, all of which are scuole grandi. Most of these scuola buildings today have been secularized and reused.

History

During the period of decline in Venice’s political and economic power between the 16th and 19th centuries, scuole contributed greatly to Venice's cultural significance and national identity. In 1467, the scuole were organised into two main types, the scuole piccole and the scuole grandi, which differed significantly from each other. The Scuole Grandi were institutions of extreme wealth, still active today, whose members did not share some part of their identity, such as trade or nationality, with each other as they did within the scuole piccole. The scuole were overseen by the Venetian government, although the government rarely intervened with the organizations. As evidence, the Scuola di Santi Giuliano e Carlo, founded in 1277, did not have direct contact with the Venetian government until 1559.

Many scuole were identity-based around characteristics like occupation or foreign nationality, providing the members with support for issues that afflicted their demographic. The scuole arte were particularly involved in this sort of community building, as many of them acted as guilds and offered training in their particular area of expertise. The scuole also offered a variety of services and opportunities to the non-patrician Venetians that furthered their sense of fulfillment in their ability to impact their local government. All confraternities held elections for official positions within the brotherhood, and most did not have rules regarding who could or could not run for office.

In addition to the power that scuole gave non-patrician Venetians, they also offered services that furthered their integral role in Venetian life. For example, many scuole were responsible for the burials of community members who had passed. The confraternities that were responsible for this held the burial chambers in their meetinghouses, so the buildings themselves played integral roles in the spiritual and public health aspects of the burials. The scuole were also charitable organizations, with many offering welfare funds that members paid into and could draw money from in the event of financial hardship. By the 14th century, the Venetian government observed the charitable nature of the confraternities and decided to place the responsibility of community poor relief entirely on the scuole. Rather than the government overseeing the distribution of food and clothes to the poor, as well as hospitals and funerary rites, scuole took responsibility for these services for both members and non-members.

The confraternities of Venice were diverse organizations in numerous ways, and these diversities impacted the physical meetinghouses of the scuole. There was a large range of financial statuses among the different scuole. For example, the scuole arte were, on average, less wealthy than the devotional scuole or the scuole del sacramento. The population of members of the Venetian scuole was also varied in gender. By the 14th century, most scuole had fully integrated women into their membership and officer positions. Due to this diversity of type and membership, scuole arte tended to have fewer members, since they were drawing from a smaller pool of Venetian citizens. Many of the scuole arte were not able to afford their own physical meetinghouse unless a particularly wealthy member donated a large sum.

The Venetian scuole also had diverse contributions to the arts. The confraternities with greater access to financial resources through their wealthy donors commissioned art as a way to display the grandiosity of their charitable acts. Confraternities wealthy enough to have their own meetinghouse typically commissioned paintings, while altars were the first choice of the less prosperous scuole. The less wealthy scuole, without their own meeting buildings, often used a neighboring church as their meetinghouse, and so would dedicate a church side altar as their meeting place. By the 15th century, nearly every scuole arte had “acquired patronage rights to a side-altar in one of the churches of Venice.”

The scuole eventually came to an end as a result of the influence of Napoleon Bonaparte, causing the dissolution of the Republic of Venice in 1797. This time in Venice’s history marked the disintegration of the Venetian government, and thus a decline in Venetian cultural activities. Despite the scuole withstanding cultural changes within Venice over the last five centuries, the overtaking of the city by Austria in 1798 rendered their end inevitable. Records of scuole piccole in Venice ceased to exist after around 1810, and there are still four scuole grandi standing today.

Adaptive Reuse

After the downfall of scuole, many scuola buildings today 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 scuole in Venice have been repurposed to be used as buildings such as hotels, museums, and residential housing, among many other uses. There are only four scuole fulfilling their historical role today, all of which are scuole grandi.