LOMBARDO, Pietro
(b. ca. 1435, Carona, d. 1515, Venezia)

Scuola Grande di San Marco: Façade

begun 1489
Photo
Campo San Giovanni e Paolo, Venice

In 1489 Pietro Lombardo was hired to supervise construction at the Scuola Grande di San Marco, which had been destroyed by fire in 1485. He designed the lower part of the façade in conjunction with Giovanni di Antonio Buora (1450-1513). The construction of the lower part of the façade (begun 1489) incorporated some sculptures saved from the old meeting-house, while Pietro's son Tullio created the low-relief panels (1489-90) at street level, two containing the Lions of St Mark flanking the main door into the meeting-house, and two illustrating St Mark Healing Anianus and St Mark Baptizing Anianus. Unique in the sculptural embellishment of the scuole grandi, the monumental and classicizing approach of these panels looked forward to the stylistic developments of the High Renaissance in Venice.

These extremely pictorial reliefs complement the ostentatiously decorated façade, which has been called the most picturesque architectural concept of the 15th century. Its coloured marble veneer, asymmetry, use of statues and pictorial reliefs and non-classical organization of proportions have come to epitomize Venetian taste for extravagance and colour in architecture. In fact, the lobes of its upper façade were probably intended to recall the domes of San Marco, its namesake, and the apparently unorthodox organization of the façade has been shown to reflect the organization and functions of the Scuola's interior.

Tintoretto furnished the Scuola with paintings depicting miracles of St Mark (now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, and in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan).