790 wolfgang wolters
where a relief immortalizes the Siege of Scutari by the Ottomans (1479),
were rare.
Within the Scuole Grandi, the meeting chambers of the governing
body, the Sala dell’Albergo for the banca and the larger chamber, the Sala
capitolare, for the members, the walls and ceilings as well as the altars
on the front wall offered surfaces for pictures. common themes were the
lives of the titular saints and, after that, references to their responsibili-
ties (Scuola di S. Girolamo), remembrance of the Holy League and the
victorious battle of Lepanto against the Ottoman fleet (1571), which was
a high point of Venetian history (Scuola of the Madonna del rosario in
SS. Giovanni e Paolo since 1575), and biblical and special eucharistic cycles
(Scuola Grande di San rocco). tintoretto’s emphasis on the responsibili-
ties of the Scuola di S. rocco, as well as the duty of every single member
to supply food and drink for the needy, had weight in the face of a back-
ground of criticism about the luxurious structure and furnishings of the
Scuole and the consequent neglect of duties, for example by caravia, a
goldsmith and writer whose ideas were dangerously close to Protestant-
ism. titian had already admonished them to give alms in his Presentation
of Mary in the Temple in the Scuola della carità. tintoretto, in his Last
Suppers for churches, had made the theme of the distribution of bread
and wine to the needy into a theme which both warned the viewer and
inspired thoughtfulness.
in the Scuola Grande di S. Giovanni evangelista, Vittore carpaccio
(1486–1525), Gentile Bellini (1429–1507), and Lazzaro Bastiani (c.1425–1512)
created, within the cycle of the relic of the cross, urban situations as a
background for miracles whose authenticity could thus be attested to. it
is certain that Jacopo Bellini (c.1400–71), with his lost picture cycles of the
same Scuola, was influential. the extremely detailed depictions of urban
spaces and of the interiors of churches (carpaccio: the Vision of Ottoboni
in S. Antonio di castello, Gallerie dell’Accademia) can be differentiated
from fictitious, often not even constructible, buildings in the backgrounds
of the paintings. Jacopo Bellini’s scenes of courtyards, city gates, churches,
and chapels betray his intense study of his Venetian and Upper italian
surroundings and at the same time his intention to transform them. thus
flourished a unique genre of architectonic picture backgrounds in which
there can be seen numerous suggestions, no more, of buildings that have
either been built or shown in architectural treatises (for example, by
Sebastiano Serlio). this distance from reality is similar for the often mag-
nificent floors depicted in paintings.