The Scuola di Santo Stefano was one of the schools of devotion in
Venice. The building that served as headquarters, located in the San
Marco district in campiello Santo Stefano, has been extensively
remodeled over the centuries and raised by three floors; today it is
used for commercial use on the ground floor and for residential use on
the others.
Due to a misunderstanding due to Molmenti, the Scuola
dei Laneri is also mentioned recursively but improperly, an art that
instead had its own headquarters in Santa Croce.
The brotherhood was founded on March 3, 1299, thus being one of the
oldest brotherhoods erected in Venice. However, the most precise
information that remains to us is that reported by the Mariegola begun
in 1493 but also reporting the relevant news of the immediately
preceding decades transcribed by the old mariegola.
Despite the
ambiguity cited that it was related to the Laneri, the brotherhood was
not linked to an Art, it was like others a school of devotion and like
these its brothers carried out the most varied professions. The various
trades of many of the school's managers are mentioned over the years in
the Mariegola documents – whether they were traders or artisans: batioro
(gold leaf manufacturers), criveladori de formento (wheat sifters),
marangoni (carpenters), stagneri (tinsmiths ), spicieri (apothecaries),
frutaruoli (greengrocers), sartori (tailors), taiapiera (stonecutters
and sculptors), and so on. The presence of these latter stonecutters was
for a certain period particularly significant: e.g. in 1506 Giovanni
Buora was guardian (president) of the school having Manfredo di Paolo da
Bissone as vicar and Bernardino Sorella, both renowned taiapiera, among
the councilors, furthermore among the brothers there was Pietro
Lombardo, dean of the Taiapiera Guild. There is no trace of the laneri
except in the controversies of the late eighteenth century. In fact, in
1676 the Laneri e had been entrusted with a capital of 1,000 ducats.
Later, due to the heavy crisis in the wool sector, they were unable to
pay the interest, as reported in the records of 1756 and 1780.
Initially, for meetings and liturgical celebrations, the school used its
own altar and the sacristy of the church of Santo Stefano. From 1437 he
obtained from the Augustinian friars, a portion of the cemetery land in
front of the facade of the church. A small headquarters was built here,
expanded in 1476 into a two-storey building with a chapel on the ground
floor and the chapter house above. In 1506 it was decided to decorate
both the chapel with wooden reredos and the chapter house with
paintings. Francesco Bissolo was commissioned to paint the altarpiece,
the Triptych of Saint Stephen with Saints Augustine and Nicholas of
Tolentino – an obvious homage to the nearby convent – delivered in 1510.
Vittore Carpaccio was commissioned to paint the five canvases of the
Stories of Saint Stephen: this sumptuous cycle was created in several
phases between 1511 and 1520.
According to the practice of the
schools, the contracts with the artists were not recorded, so all these
works were officially mentioned for the first time in 1564 in a draft
for a merger agreement with the Scuola di San Teodoro, a merger that
never came to fruition. . The document recommended that «li quadri de
pitura a oglio della vita del Glorioso ms. St. Stephen [...] truly
worthy of being preserved for their beauty» should be honorably placed
in the new building under a well-decorated ceiling. The first citation
in the literature of the works appears later, which appears to be the
one in Boschini's Ricche minere which, among other things,
misunderstands the author of the triptych, also attributing it to
Carpaccio, an error which would drag on for centuries.
In the
18th century, the Scuola experienced a period of profound crisis,
probably due to the dispute with the Laneri, which required some
initiatives to survive, such as renting a room to a cheese merchant
(1757) and then to a strazzarolo (1799). .
With the Napoleonic
suppressions of 1806 the furnishings and decorations were dispersed. A
canvas by Carpaccio was mysteriously lost: according to the inventory of
Anton Maria Zanetti, inspector of the republic for public paintings, on
14 September 1773 it was still in situ, presence confirmed by the next
inspector Francesco Maggiotto on 18 October 1796; instead it does not
appear in the delivery note of 26 October 1807 to Pietro Edwards,
Napoleonic delegate for these confiscations. The other four paintings of
the cycle are found today in as many museums; the triptych by Bissolo
has instead reached the Pinacoteca di Brera.
The old building was
raised and incorporated into a larger building, of the old only the door
and window openings remain, and set in the wall, a small late Gothic
bas-relief, of markedly popular workmanship, which represents Saint
Stephen venerated by the brothers.
The Stories of Saint Stephen (1511-1520, oil on canvas) belong to the
final phase of the painter's life in probable collaboration with his son
Pietro. The narrated episodes are mainly inspired by the Golden Legend,
a source already widely experimented by Carpaccio, rather than by the
Acts of the Apostles, precisely framed in scenes with a Renaissance
flavor.
Saint Stephen and six of his companions consecrated
deacons by Saint Peter, 1511, 148x231 cm, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie;
Saint Stephen's sermon, 1514, 152x195 cm, Paris, Louvre;
Dispute of
Saint Stephen, 1514, 147x172 cm, Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera;
Trial of
Santo Stefano, lost, probably carried out on a date very close to that
of the following; A drawing, a copy of the original or sketch, by the
hand of the school (perhaps Benedetto Carpaccio) remains in the Uffizi;
Stoning of Saint Stephen, 1520, 142x170 cm, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie.