Save Venice is seeking sponsors for the conservation of artworks on the Second Floor of the Scuola Dalmata dei Santi Giorgio e Trifone | Partial Sponsorship Available

*Published sponsorship costs are subject to change due to conservation plan modifications and fluctuations in exchange rates.

Please contact kim@savevenice.org today for more information and the latest cost estimates.

PATRONS
The Boston Chapter of Save Venice
Associazione Culturale “Savio Benefator” In memoria dei fratelli Cesare e Bice Vivante through the Fondazione Save Venice – ETS
Valentina Piovan in Memory of Valter Piovan through the Fondazione Save Venice – ETS

SUPPORTERS
Patricia Nagy Olsen
Patricia Fortini Brown
The Versailles Foundation, Inc. / Claude Monet-Giverny
MJ Fleischman
In Memory of Mutsuo Tomita
Carter and Susan Emerson
In Memory of Rosa & Antonio Bertoldi
Mitzi Mariani Rusconi through Fondazione Save Venice – ETS
JoAnne M.K. & E. George Jackson

Founded on May 19, 1451, the Scuola Dalmata dei Santi Giorgio e Trifone—better known as the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni—was established by the Dalmatian (or “Schiavoni”) community living in Venice. In less than two weeks, on May 30, the confraternity had already found a home: the 14th-century Oratory of Saint Catherine, owned by the Priory of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. What followed was a transformation. The ground floor of the oratory was converted into an intimate chapel, centered around an altar dedicated to their patron saint, Saint George. To decorate the space, the confraternity commissioned a cycle of narrative paintings from Vittore Carpaccio (currently undergoing conservation by Save Venice).

A century after its founding, the Scuola marked a major milestone with an ambitious transformation. In 1551, the Guardian Grande, Giovanni da Lissa, launched a sweeping renovation campaign that would reshape both the building and its identity. The project was entrusted to Giovanni de Zon, chief architect of the Venetian Arsenal, who reimagined the interior and gave the façade a richly decorative character inspired by Jacopo Sansovino (restored by Save Venice in 2001–2004 and again in 2024). The momentum continued into the next decade. In November 1564, Guardian Grande Giovanni Tintore proposed enhancing the upper hall with a new ceiling and continuous wooden benches along its walls—an intervention that would shape the space’s ceremonial function. The completion of these renovations was later immortalized in stone. A marble relief set into the frieze on the left wall, dated March 15, 1586, commemorates the finished project under the guardianship of Vettor Tromba, leaving a lasting record of a century defined by renewal and artistic ambition.

For centuries, the second floor of the Scuola Dalmata’s meeting house served as the center of its institutional life, where governance, ritual, and decision-making converged. On one side, the room functioned as the Chapter Hall, where all voting members assembled to choose their leaders—the so-called Banca. At the sound of a bell, the confraternity would gather: voices raised in nomination and debate, alliances formed, votes cast. From this ritual emerged the officials who would guide the Scuola for the year ahead. Yet the same room also served a quieter, more continuous role. As the Sala dell’Albergo, it became the seat of daily administration, where the elected Banca met to deliberate, decide, and direct the institution’s affairs. Generation after generation, leaders drawn from Venice’s Dalmatian community shaped the Scuola’s path within these walls.

It was in this very room that the Banca of the Scuola resolved to adorn the meeting place with paintings that would reflect both their spiritual mission and their civic ambition. These commissions were not abstract acts of patronage, but decisions made collectively, in the same space where leaders were elected and policies determined. Above, the gilded and polychrome wooden ceiling unfolds into an illusionistic vision of the patron saints rising triumphantly toward heaven—a powerful evocation of divine protection and intercession. Along the walls, 12 devotional paintings place the Scuola’s officials in the honored presence of their patron saints, binding their likenesses to enduring symbols of faith and authority. In commissioning these paintings, the confraternity’s members shaped how they wished to be seen, both in their own time and for generations to come. The paintings thus stand not only as expressions of devotion, but as the outcome of collective decisions made within these very walls, where faith, governance, and identity converged.

Conn, Melissa and Gabriele Matino. La facciata della Scuola Dalmata: storia e restauri. In Basso, Amalia Donatella (ed.). Riflessioni e ricordi d’arte per Emanuela Zucchetta. Verona: Cierre Grafica, 2025, pp. 119-132

Perocco, Guido. Carpaccio nella Scuola di S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni. Venice: Ferdinando Ongania Editore, 1964, pp. 181-205

Pignatti, Terisio (ed.). Le scuole di Venezia. Milan: Electa, 1981, pp. 99, 106-107, 118

Rizzi, Alberto. “Le tele parietali dell’«Albergo» di S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni.” In Scuola Dalmata dei SS. Giorgio e Trifone, 16 (1983): 13-24

Trška, Tanja. Venetian Painters and Dalmatian Patrons: Minor Masters in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni between Collective and Individual. In Capriotti, Giuseppe, Francesca Coltrinari and Jasenka Gudelj (eds.), Visualizing Past in a Foreign Country: Schiavoni/Illyrian Confraternities and Colleges in Early Modern Italy in comparative perspective (Il capitale culturale. Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage, Supplementi 07 / 2018), pp. 45-55. Link to the article