1516 Bartolomeo Bon and Codussi, Venice's first major Renaissance architects, begin work on the Scuola.
1524 Completion of the first floor. Bon is replaced by Sante Lombardo, an architect who works in the Mannerist style.
1526 Continuing disagreement between the Scuola and the architect leads to Sante Lombardo's departure, and all work comes to a halt.
1527 Antionio di Pietro Abbondi (known as Scarpanigno) takes over and completes the top part of the façade, including il portale maggiore (the main entrance), and begins the work on the grand main staircase.
1544 la Sala Grande Superiore (upper floor) completed, along with the Sala dell'Albergo.
1549 Scarpanigno dies leaving rear façade and grand staircase incomplete. The workshop of Gian Giacomo de' Grigi begins the windows and basic decoration of the la Sala Grande Superiore.
1560 Main staircase, windows, and basic decoration of the la Sala Grande Superiore completed about this year.
1561 Painted decoration commences.
1564 Tintoretto produces 21 paintings, including San Rocco in Glory for the ceiling of the Sala dell'Albergo; most of the other works are allegorical figures plus allegories representing the vartious Venetian scuole.
1565 Tintoretto produces 6 works for the walls of the Sala dell'Albergo, including the immense Crucifixion.
1566-67 Tintoretto paints Christ before Pilate, The Crown of Thorns, and the Procession to Calvary for the walls of the Sala dell'Albergo.
1575 Tintoretto decorates the ceiling of the Sala Grande Superiore with 21 paintings, most of which depict Old Testament prefigurations of Christ, including Moses striking water from the rock, Gathering of Manna, The Brazen Serpent, Jonah and the Whale, and The Sacrifice of Isaac.
1578 Tintoretto decorates paints 13 works for the walls of the Sala Grande Superiore, including some that illustrate antitypes (or fulfillments) of Old Testament types and prophecies in the Gospels, such as The Baptism of Christ [fulfills Moses striking water from the rock]. Others include The Adoration the Shepherds, The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, The Temptation of Christ.
1582-87 Tintoretto paints 8 works for the sala terrena (ground floor), beginnning the Annunciation in 1582 completing it five years later. Other works in this series include The Adoration of the Magi, The Flight into Eygpt, The massacre of the Innocents, The Circumcision of Christ, The Assumption of ther Vergin, and paintings of Mary Magdalen and Saint Mary of Eygpt.
1587 The sculptor Giralamo Campagna begins work on the the ground floor altar
1665 Francesco Pianta il Giovane produces the wooden carytids and allegorical figures that line the walls of the upper gallery.
1666 The right wall of the grand staircase is decorated with Antonio Zanchi's painting of The Virgin appearing to the Apostles.
1673 The left wall of the grand staircase is decorated with Pietro Negri's painting of The Madonna saving Venice from the Plague of 1630.
1690 Antonio Pellegrini decorates the dome above the stair case with a painting of Faith and Charity surrounding San Rocco as he aids the poor stricken by illness.
1741 Giovanni Marchiori creates 24 wooden bas relief wall panels depicting the life of San Rocco surrounding the altar on the Sala Grande Superiore
1754 Giuseppe Angeli paints the ceiling of the Cancellaria.
1756 Giuseppe Filiberti produces the bronze gates that separate the altar area from the rest of the great hall.
1846 Ruskin publishes the second volume Modern Painters, which contains his interpretative description of Tintoretto's Annunciation.
1848 Ruskin's analysis of Tintoretto's Annunciation inspires the British Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Hunt and Millais, to create a symbolic realism.
1869 Hunt and Ruskin together visit the Scuola, finding "the ruin and dilapidation much greater than . . . expected."
1876 Ruskin paints a watercolor of the Scuola.
1885 The floor of la Sala Grande Superiore is relaid.
1890 Final decorations completed.
1995-97 La Scuola restored and relit.
Bibliography
Grossato, Giovanna. La Scuola Grande di San Rocco a Venezia. CD-ROM. ASH MultiMedia, 1997.
Hunt, William Holman. Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. 2 vols. London, 1905.
"Your Good Influence on Me": The Correspondence of John Ruskin and William Holman Hunt. Ed. George P. Landow. The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library of Manchester, 59 (1976-77): 95--126; 367--96 .
Last modified 12 April 2012