Volume 32, Number 1, Spring 2021 THE SCUOLA DALMATA DEI SANTI GIORGIO E TRIFONE IN VENICE

EN:

The original installation of Vittore Carpaccio’s narra­tive paintings in the Scuola Dalmata has long been assumed to have been in the upper chapter hall, following the practice used in other Venetian confraternities (Scuole). Studies and observations dur­ing the recent conservation campaign of the canvases have led to a new hypothesis that Carpaccio may very well have instead placed his paintings on the ground floor, as we see them today, due to a heated dispute with the Priory of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem over the control of the upstairs premises.

EN:

Late medieval Venetians had an established tradition of visualising Saint George and venerating him in many ways and for differing purposes, but he was also celebrated by non-Venetians liv­ing in the city. The diasporic community of the Schiavoni chose the saint to be the patron of their confraternity (Scuola), and so he fea­tures prominently in the decorative programmes they commissioned for their building; this decision had its origins in their provenance, occupations, and local affinity with the Venetians. This article has two aims: first, to chart the backgrounds of the Schiavoni confratelli, and second, to examine the visual clues within Carpaccio’s narrative cycle at the Scuola Dalmata to explore themes of unity, mobility, and otherness. It will conclude that the confratelli’s background of home-displacement, and their military, mercantile, and artisan occupations led to their selection of Saint George as patron; and that their at­tempts to integrate into the Venetian community can be understood in conversation with the iconography of the Saint George narrative on the walls of their Scuola.

EN:

In 1502 Vittore Carpaccio delivered the Calling of Saint Matthew to the Venetian Scuola Dalmata dei Santi Giorgio e Trifone, a confraternity founded in 1451 by the Dalmatian community resid­ing in Venice. The painting’s recent restoration sponsored by Save Venice offers an opportunity to re-examine the work and recon­sider its iconography. Building upon new visual and documentary evidence, this article argues that Carpaccio painted the tax collector Matthew not as a Jewish moneylender, as previously assumed, but as a Venetian moneychanger within his workplace, a banco de tapeto that once faced Campo San Giacomo at Rialto. An examination of Matthew’s gesture reveals that Carpaccio depicted the moment that preceded, rather than followed, the Evangelist’s decision to aban­don his profession and follow Christ. This change to the traditional iconography, I suggest, should be regarded as a visual exemplum of Christian charity, the virtue central to the Scuola Dalmata’s devo­tional practices.