LOMBARDO, Tullio
(b. ca. 1460, d. 1532, 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, Venice, which had been destroyed by fire in 1485. He designed the lower part of the façade in conjunction with Giovanni di Antonio Buora before they were replaced by Antonio Rizzo and Mauro Codussi in 1490. Francesco Sansovino wrote that Tullio Lombardo executed the reliefs flanking the two portals of the Scuola. 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.