1. Jacopo De' Barbari, Pianta prospettica di Venezia, 1500. Detail of the Church of Saint Roch.

2. Luca Carlevarijs, Altra veduta della Scuola di San Rocco, acquaforte,1703. Detail of the Church of Saint Roch.

3. The Bell Tower of Saint Roch.

The San Rocco Confraternity located its first seat in the church of San Zulian and later in S. Maria Gloriosa of the Frari. Officially instituted on the 27th of May, 1478, it had, on the 16th of July of the same year and in the solemn presence of the Patriarch Maffeo Girardi, laid the first stone of a chapel named after the Saint, which was to be erected within the cemetery grounds of the Frari. In accordance with the agreement signed on 15th October, the Confraternity gained a free concession of the land to build not only the church, but also the scuola, a small house and the tombs for the Confratelli. The 13th of May 1485, the Patriarch Maffeo Girardi, while informing the Council of Ten of the circumstances of the translation of the body of Saint Roch to Venice, authorised the confratelli to demolish the chapel, which had already been built but not yet consecrated. No description of this building exists.
On 9th August 1489, the Scuola – in the meantime moved first to San Samuele and then to San Silvestro – decided to return to the Frari and to build a new church in the same plot where the chapel had been demolished, signing new agreements and pacts with the Frati on the 23rd of December, 1489. By the 3rd of March 1490, the body of the Saint had already been transferred.
The church was based on the model of Bon Bergamasco, Overseer of the Procurators of San Marco. The very sober aspect, in obedience to the precise promises made to the Frati Minori, had already been completed by 1494, as can be seen in the Pianta prospettica by Jacopo de’ Barbari from 1500 (see fig. 1). It is characterised by a single aisle which ends with an apsidal presbytery flanked by two side chapels. The façade (see fig.2) ) was of the type called codussiano, divided into three parts by tall pilasters which terminated with the entablature, along which ran the inscription “SU(M)MO ET EXCELSO DEO DEVOTA, H(A)EC SCOLA PIE VIVIT ET SANCTO ROCHO HIC IACENTI EIUS PATRONO MCCCCLXXXXIIII”, placed then at the base of the right side of the church. The jambs of the portal are decorated with swirls populated with birds and other symbolic figures following a model of Lombardy origin, was surmounted by a lunette with a round-headed arch. Above this, there was a big rose-window, characterised by a rich garland-shaped fruit and flowers frame. At the sides, just above the entablature, two semi-circular tympanums, surmounted by small temples – with as many bells – supported the central one which opened on the campitura by a second eye and surmounted by the triangular fronton, resting on an entablature with the inscription: “SPES FRATERNITATIS SANCTI ROCHI IN DEO EST”, which is now walled-up in the basement on the left side of the church. At the top, a large statue of Saint Roch stood out, attributed to Giovanni Buora.
The construction of the campanile (bell-tower) (see fig.3) was expressly forbidden in the agreement with the Frati Minori, but already in 1503 there is news of the decision to erect a small one above the sacristy. It was finished four years later, in a very simple style. With its bell room with mullion windows, the bell tower follows a model, common to Venice between the end of the Fifteenth and the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.
The church kept its original characteristics up to 1725, when it was decided to rebuild the endangered building.