As the only church owned by a scuola grande (or lay confraternity), the church of San Rocco holds a unique position in the hierarchy of Venetian ecclesiastical spaces. It owes its significance to the acquisition of the relics of Saint Roch in 1485, a furto sacro second in importance only to the daring theft of the body of Saint Mark from Alexandria in 828/9. The first four scuole grandi had all been founded beside existing friaries or monasteries, and although the Scuola di San Rocco was established behind the Franciscan church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in 1478, the subsequent possession of the saint's relics justified the construction of an independent shrine, the subject of the present book. Saint Roch was believed to offer protection from bubonic plague, which had been afflicting Venice with fearsome frequency since the Black Death of 1348.

This is the ninth volume in the series Chiese di Venezia, a pioneering research programme directed by Gianmario Guidarelli. Each volume publishes the proceedings of an interdisciplinary conference: the books are neither artistic catalogues nor guidebooks, but instead span a wide range of topics such as hagiography, building history, studies of works of art, conservation, patronage, ritual and liturgy, sacred music and economic history. The churches are seen within their constantly shifting religious, historical and geographical horizons.

The church of San Rocco has long been overshadowed, both literally and in scholarship, by the impressive presence of the eponymous scuola grande on its south side. The magnificence of the Scuola building, and especially its celebrated cycle of paintings by Jacopo Tintoretto, have tended to distract attention from the church itself. Yet the church was built before the Scuola, and its embellishment continued throughout the lifetime of the Republic. It was the church, rather than the confraternity, that became the destination of the annual ducal andata or ritual procession, celebrated from 1577 onwards on 16th August, and immortalised by Canaletto in his painting now in the National Gallery in London. Thanks to the widespread fear of plague, the Scuola di San Rocco rapidly grew to become the wealthiest scuola grande in the city. Manfredo Tafuri memorably described the complex of the Scuola di San Rocco as a "Republichetta", that is, a miniature version of Piazza San Marco, equipped with its own venerated shrine (the church), seat of government (the Scuola itself), and residential buildings (the adjacent Castelforte di San Rocco). [1]

This 500-page book, the first monographic study of the church, consists of twenty chapters by individual authors, divided into four sections. As in other volumes in the series, the editors represent different disciplines: the art historian Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel is already the author of numerous studies of the Scuola and its church; whereas David d'Andrea is an early modern historian specialising in Venetian charitable institutions. The book is beautifully illustrated with colour photographs by Francesco Turio Boehm, as well as surveys from the rich holdings of the Scuola archives (conserved in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia) and newly drawn plans and sections.

The richness of information provided by these absorbing essays cannot be summarised in a brief review, but it is important to highlight the abundance of knowledge that they communicate. The book opens with contextual background on the cult of San Rocco in the Veneto, discussed in essays by Fabio Tonizzi, Rachele Scuro and Francesco Bianchi, not to mention an overview of the archival resources by Claudia Salmini.

The second section considers the building and decoration of the church of San Rocco in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Gianmario Guidarelli recounts the building history of the first church, begun in 1489 by the proto (chief building technician) Pietro Bon and consecrated in 1508. Although only the presbytery and the outer walls of the nave survive, its appearance was recorded in an etching by Luca Carlevaris, published in 1703. Chiari Moretto Wiel's chapter on the sixteenth-century embellishment of the interior gives an overview of the whole decorative programme, including the lavish marble high altar built to contain the saint's relics, the frescoes by Pordenone in the presbytery, the display of the miraculous image of Cristo portacroce (attributed to Titian), and the canvases on the side walls of the presbytery by Tintoretto, executed between 1549 and 1567. The rest of the chapters in the section, by Adelaide Ricci, Louise Marshall, Amalia Donatella Basso, Ewa Rybalt and Diana Gisolfi elaborate on different aspects of these works, especially those by Tintoretto.

The remodelling of the church in the eighteen century is the theme of the third section. Chiari Moretto Wiel provides a survey of the new decorative works, including the repainting of the presbytery's dome in oil medium by Giuseppe Angeli (signed and dated 1766). Federica Restiani recounts the challenge of restoring Angeli's oil painting, which has suffered from mould and fungus over the centuries because of water penetration and the oil medium's inability to allow evaporation. Soon after the repainting of the dome, the façade (shown stripped in Canaletto's view mentioned above) was rebuilt in 1768-69 to designs by Macaruzzi with statues of Venetian saints by Marchiori, Gai and Morlaiter, as William Barcham's chapter explains. Massimo Favilla and Ruggero Rugolo discuss the new sacristy and sanctuary, added in rococo style in the mid-eighteenth century. The last chapter in the section by Lorenzo Lazzarini reviews the array of rare and costly marbles in the church's interior. The high altar itself, executed in 1517-24 to enshrine the body of St Roch, is probably the most lavish inlaid marble altar in the city of Venice, as highlighted by the late Joachim Strupp (not cited here). [2]

The final section considers the role of the church in Venetian religious life, beginning with Christopher J. Nygren's study of the painting Cristo portacroce, now in the Scuola, but originally displayed in the church, where it attracted pilgrims on account of its miraculous powers. Attributed by Vasari to Giorgione in the first edition of his Lives, and to Titian in the later edition of 1568, the composition appears at the top in Titian's fund-raising woodcut of 1517-18. Matteo Casini's chapter considers the "urban liturgy", including the blessing of pilgrims to the Holy Land in the church, and the ducal andata, mentioned earlier. Giulia Zanon discusses testators' wishes to endow commemorative masses in the church, or even to be buried in the church, while David d'Andrea reviews the responses of visitors, from Sanudo's account of 1520 to the nineteenth century's "cultural pilgrimage". The book concludes with Jonathan Glixon's authoritative account of the role of music in the church's liturgy, complete with musical examples and archival sources.

In brief, this handsome book offers a readable, illuminating and scholarly account of an important yet sadly hitherto understudied church, here thrown into sharp relief by the different perspectives offered by its twenty authors.

Notes:

[1] Manfredo Tafuri: Venezia e il Rinascimento, Torino 1985, 142.

[2] Joachim Strupp: The Colour of Money, in: Venezia cinquecento 3/5 (1993), 7-32.

Deborah Howard