The church of San Rocco is a religious building located in Campo San Rocco, in the San Polo district, in Venice.
When in 1489 it decided to move permanently near the Frari, the
Scuola Grande di San Rocco decided to erect a church to be dedicated to
their titular saint. It is not known who was the architect, but
traditionally it is attributed to Bon. The works were finished quickly
and the building was inaugurated in 1494, even if the dome was not
finished before 1507. The church had a single nave with an apsidal and
domed presbytery flanked by two side chapels. The facade was of the
Codussian type, along the entablature ran the inscription "su(m)mo et
excelso deo devota, h(a)ec Schola pie vivit et sancto rocho hic iacenti
eius patrono mcccclxxxxiiii" (devoted to God supreme and sublime, this
school lives piously and his patron Saint Rocco rests here).
Between
1726 and 1732 the church was radically restructured to a design by
Giovanni Scalfarotto who replaced the flat ceiling with a vault
interrupted by large thermal windows, only the old apses and the dome
remained. The beginning of the works on the facade instead dates back to
1756, following a competition won by Giorgio Fossati, the proto of the
School, but the works were interrupted after only two years because the
project was considered too expensive. Between 1765 and 1769, ignoring
what had already been built by Fossati, the current façade was erected
by Bernardino Maccaruzzi, who had won a second competition proposing a
two-level solution which also recalls the façade of the nearby Scuola
Grande in the finishes, however overloading it of sculptures. Of the
original facade built by Bon, you can still see the old portal and the
rose window, which open the side entrance.
External
The four niches of the façade house as many statues of
Venetian saints and blesseds: in the lower register Gerardo Sagredo and
Pietro Orseolo by Giovanni Marchiori, in the upper one Lorenzo
Giustiniani and Gregorio Barbarigo by Giovanni Maria Morlaiter. Between
the two statues in the upper register is the imposing relief with San
Rocco healing the plague victims again by Morlaiter. Crowning above the
attic is the statue of San Rocco flanked by other statues of Venetian
saints, Pietro Acotanto and Jacopo Salomonio. On the lunette of the
door, San Rocco carried to heaven by angels is a modern bronze copy of
the original by Marchiori walled up in the right apse chapel.
Internal
Counter facade:
statues of David and Saint Cecilia (1743)
by Giovanni Marchiori;
organ (1742) by Pietro Nachini, renovated in
1768 by Gaetano Callido, with a choir loft decorated with wooden statues
by Giovanni Marchiori.
The Cantoria, located on the counter-façade,
was originally assembled and disassembled for solemn festivities. It is
a large eighteenth-century Baroque wooden artefact, recovered and
reassembled on site in 2013, after careful restoration, and still in
use.
Left wall:
Saint Helena Finding the Wood of the Cross by
Sebastiano Ricci;
San Martino and San Cristoforo del Pordenone;
Christ drives the merchants out of the Temple by Giovanni Antonio
Fumiani;
Annunciation by Francesco Solimena.
left chapel:
altar of the Blessed Sacrament, with statuettes from the school of
Vittoria.
plaque in memory of Don Sante della Valentina (1748-1826),
chaplain of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco since 1779.
Wooden
crucifix by the sculptor Giuseppe Romanelli from 1950.
main
chapel:
the altar (1517-1524) designed by Venturino Fantoni and
housing statues by Giovanni Maria Mosca and Bartolomeo Bergamasco;
dome, spandrels, apse and apsidal basin frescoed by Pordenone starting
from 1528, repainted in the eighteenth century by Giuseppe Angeli with
the exception of the lower band of the apse with Putti with symbols of
San Rocco;
San Rocco heals the plague victims, San Rocco in prison
comforted by the angel, San Rocco heals the animals and San Rocco struck
by the plague by Tintoretto;
wooden dossals attributed to Marchiori.
right chapel:
Saint Pius X with two brothers (1951-54) by Felice
Carena;
original lunette of the main portal with Glory of San Rocco
by Giovanni Marchiori;
Right wall:
The Miracle of Saint
Anthony by Francesco Trevisani;
San Rocco captured at the battle of
Montpellier by Tintoretto;
Christ heals the paralytic by Tintoretto;
St. Francis of Paola resurrects a dead child by Sebastiano Ricci.
Ceiling with San Rocco distributing the riches by Giovanni Antonio
Fumiani.
Corridor leading to the sacristy:
monument to
Pellegrino Baselli Grillo (1517);
Sacristy:
ceiling with paintings
by Francesco Fontebasso and Andrea Solari.