The Great School or Scuola Grande di San Teodoro is an ancient Venetian brotherhood. The oldest as an institution but the most recent of the six "historic" grand schools, it will be over a hundred years before another is elevated to the status of grande.
According to its own Mariegola, the school originates from an older
confraternity dedicated to San Teodoro founded in the eighth century in
the doge chapel of the same name which stood on the site of the basilica
of San Marco, when the saint was revered as the patron saint of Venice.
A century later the Venetians stole the body of San Marco from
Alessandria and adopted him as their new patron, thus the old
brotherhood lost its reason for existing.
The actual school was
established in 1258, the first of those that would become Great, at the
church of San Salvador then of the Augustinian Canons.
In 1261
the remains of Saint Theodore arrived in Venice from Constantinople and
were solemnly placed in an altar of the church. The school undertook
with the fathers to keep it illuminated and to provide for the
decoration of the chapel and in 1333 the vault of the chapel was
finished. The altar assumed ever greater importance when Pope Eugene IV,
in 1434, ordered seven years of indulgence for those who went there
pray. Indulgence repeated by Pope Nicholas V for those who went there on
the days dedicated to the Most Holy Savior (August 6) and to San Teodoro
(November 9). Even more importance was achieved when in 1450 the
Venetian Senate once again assumed San Teodoro as co-patron of the city.
In the meantime the School was gaining more and more popularity for
its charitable activities. Especially for the distribution of meals to
the poor on holidays, meals that were prepared by the brothers in the
room rented from the fathers and equipped for the purpose. In 1552 it
was elevated to Scuola Grande.
At the beginning of the sixteenth
century the regular Canons of San Giorgio in Alga, who had taken over
the church in 1441, decided to expand it. The saint's body was
temporarily moved to the sacristy but at the end of the work the Canons
refused to return both the relic and the Albergo. The Scuola had to
resort to the magistracy of the Quarantia Eccellentissima Civil Nova to
resolve the matter and they only recognized their rights in 1574. To
avoid further conflicts, the Scuola decided to build its own
headquarters independent of the church. The works directed by Simone
Sorella began in 1580 and were already finished a year later. It was a
much smaller structure than the current one and oriented towards the
canal instead of towards the Campo San Salvador, unfortunately there is
no further information beyond this.
Despite the solemnity of the
inauguration, which was attended by representatives of the Scuole Grandi
sisters, the result did not satisfy the confreres because it was too
small for their needs. In the following years they continued to raise
the necessary capital for the new enterprise and in 1608, having
acquired all the contiguous funds, they entrusted the new enterprise to
Tommaso Contin. He completely changed the orientation of the building by
creating a facade towards the field and a main structure consisting of
two superimposed halls connected by a monumental staircase. To meet the
necessary financial income of the school, he incorporated the seven
commercial spaces overlooking calle del Lovo and still existing, masking
them on the main and rear facade so that the interior of the hall on the
ground floor is about a third narrower than the upper one. The works
cost more than what was available, so it was necessary to resort to the
loan of 4,000 ducats granted by the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, returned
only in 1635. The works were resumed after 1649 thanks to the bequest of
the rich brother and merchant Giacomo Galli who allowed the construction
ornamental of the facades and of the internal staircase. The works were
entrusted to the elderly architect Antonio Sardi, who was succeeded by
his son Giuseppe, to be completed with a minor intervention by
Baldassare Longhena.
Financial commitments forced the School to
cut costs for lavish processions and reduced the number of doctors
assigned to care for the poor from two to one. In the meantime, the
Regular Canons revived the conflict over the relic of Saint Theodore by
bringing it back to the sacristy, but still the ownership right was
recognized to the Scuola and it was brought back to the chapel in 1626.
The Scuola rebuilt the altar in polychrome marble and adorned it with
the altarpiece of San Teodoro by Pietro Mera (1663-64) which came to
accompany the older painting on the side, the Martyrdom of San Teodoro
attributed to Bonifacio de' Pitati (1551). The question of the relic was
resolved only in 1768 with the careful documentary research of the
brother Mattia Moro.
In 1807 the School was suppressed by the
Napoleonic authorities with the consequent confiscation of the
valuables. Since then the building was used for various uses, including
the storage of furniture, when in 1960 at the behest of the patriarch
Urbani the Scuola di San Teodoro was reconstituted and in 1995 it
returned to being the owner of the building.
The current building has a complex plan due to the narrowness and
conformation of the site, next to the apparently rectangular structure
(actually shorter on the internal side by almost a fifth), including
between the campo, calle del Lovo and the canal, which houses the
chapter house and the ground floor, an even more trapezoidal wing
extends, enclosed between the short salizada San Todaro and the canal,
which includes, in addition to the staircase, the sacristy on the ground
floor and the archive room as well as other small residual service
areas.
The only traces of the first building of the school remain
in the bas-reliefs with San Teodoro and the dragon, indeed a bit
primitive for the time, sculpted by Battista Tagliapietra on the corner
between the salizada San Todaro and the canal and bearing the date 1580
and the name of Giuseppe Negroni then Guardian Grando of the school.
The visible facade, oriented north-east towards Campo San Salvador,
built by Antonio Sardi has a still very classical Baroque style with a
pleasant chiaroscuro effect. Developed on two orders and tripartite by
paired columns set on high pedestals, it ends with a tympanum above the
central partition. The crowning statues, in the center of San Teodoro
and the adoring angels on the sides, were made by Bernardo Falconi.
Inserted in the small rose on the oculus of the tympanum is the acronym
of the Scuola. The large arched openings of the windows and the portal
enliven the façade. The windows on the first floor push their arches up
into the tympanum, supported by Ionic semi-columns, which contains them
by breaking the entablature; those on the second floor are closed in the
keystone by angelic masks and contained in a structure of Corinthian
columns closed by a classic tympanum in the center and arched for the
lateral ones. The portal is decorated on the pendentives with
allegorical figures wearing crowns and scrolls, and with a putto on the
keystone. In the center between two putti is the tombstone of the donor
Giacomo Galli. The symmetrical aspect of unity of the facade actually
masks the space intended for the shops overlooking calle del Lovo which
goes from the left corner to the columns before the portal on the first
floor.
The side towards calle del Lovo, to the left of the
building, is intended for rented shops inserted inside seven large
arches marked by bearded masks on the key, the work of Antonio Sardi,
and corresponding to the upper floor by a facing, closed by the
entablature, divided into squares by Corinthian pilasters in the center
of which there are as many windows, the final work of Longhena.
The hall on the first floor now has only the monumental entrance of the
double staircase for the upper floor, divided into three arches with
masks, the sides of which are covered by tympanums. Staircase and access
are both the work of Antonio Sardi while his son succeeded him in the
construction of the corresponding monumental Serlian which serves as
access to the chapter house with the refined reliefs closing above the
trabeated windows, San Teodoro and San Marco, the work of the stonemason
Carlo Mazzocchi.
Of the conspicuous pictorial ornamentation
mentioned by Zanetti, partially confirmed by an inventory of the School
of 1762, which included among others, in addition to a banner by Palma
il Giovane, paintings by Tiepolo, Brusaferro, Trevisani, Bambini, Lama,
etc. very little remains. We only have the ovals on the ceiling of the
chapter house with San Teodoro presents Venice to the Virgin and the
evangelists San Marco, San Luca, San Matteo and San Giovanni, and on the
ceiling of the grand staircase the Eternal Father with the Holy Spirit
and angels, all by Thomas Bugoni. In the inlaid wooden ceiling of the
so-called Sala dei Patrons remain an Angel holding the Cross by Filippo
Parodi, San Teodoro in glory and The Holy Trinity with the Virgin by
Giovanni Segala. Finally, there is the painting The Entry of Christ into
Jerusalem by Gaspare Diziani. On the other hand, the Annunciation by
Palma il Giovane (located at a distant origin in the church of Santa
Maria Maggiore) is granted on deposit by the Gallerie dell'Accademia, a
work now divided into two parts, the result of a strong reduction of the
original.