1. La Scoletta di San Rocco, before the restorations now in course.

2. Jacopo de' Barbari, Veduta prospettica di Venezia, 1500. Detail with the Scoletta visible to the right of the Chiesa.

3. Luca Carlevarijs, Altra veduta della Scuola di San Rocco, Detail of the Scoletta.

4. Gabriel Bella, La visita del doge alla Chiesa di San Rocco, post 1779 ante 1792, Venezia, Fondazione Querini Stampalia. Detail of the Scoletta.

After founding the Scuola in the May of 1478, the Confratelli di San Rocco, on the 15th of October of the same year, drew up a convention with the Frati Minori Conventuali of the Frari to be allowed the use of unoccupied land, behind the convent for the construction of their seat, on a plot of land of 44 x 8 paces. A small church and a scuola were built but were soon abandoned. The Confraternity moved first to San Samuele and then to San Silvestro while the ruined chapel was being re-built and the modest Albergo of wall and wood, the actual future Scoletta, enlarged and embellished (see fig.1). As can be seen from the view of Jacopo de’ Barbari of the year 1500 (see fig. 2), to the right of the church, placed between the convents of San Nicoletto della Lattuga and the Frari, the roof of a small building is clearly indicated. This is in fact the Scoletta, which bordered the library, the vegetable garden of the novices, a little courtyard and the cemetery of the Frari. But de’ Barbari’s panorama portrays a building that had already seen the two successive interventions. On 17 May, 1492, the Frati Minori granted to the Scuola di San Rocco permission to build on the land, where at present there is a certain albergo belonging to said Scola […] beginning directly through a certain door, which presently appears said albergo […] and to extend to and enter in the vegetable garden of the Novices to a space of five paces and feet up to a newly signed cross, and for width, beginning from the wall, to make again, up until the wall of said garden towards the courtyard, the wall of which towards the court can be renewed to conform to the existence of the agreed building ... The closeness of the convent demanded however, that the building would not have open windows through which one could look towards the Frati, if not tall, under the roof and honest not to admit light.
Two years later, the Frati Minori gave permission to the Scuola to extend the boundaries of the Scoletta up to the second window of the church (of San Rocco), granting extra land from among their holdings, which, at that time almost certainly would be kept as vegetable gardens. The 20th of September, 1494, Maestro Giacomo da Berna and his nephew, Maestro Bernardo, were summoned to carry out works of laying the foundations and to wall, faces, arches, columns, rafting, kerbing, modillions, windows, roofing,, and to put in the work all the true stone which will be needed […] and well plastered the said building inside, and outside, and all that to be totally whitewashed as is done for similar buildings ... In the November of the same year the foundations were completed. There is no information on the next phases of the work. The building could not anyway have proceeded without problems, if in the June of 1495 the Guardian Grando of the Scuola presented a request to the Signoria to elect three judges who would decide against the convent of the frati Minori […] about the land beginning from the bottom of the Sala, and to avoid any arguments that might arise from this ...
In the space of twenty years the numbers of Confratelli rose (in 1514 they had reached a membership of 500) and the importance of the Confraternity grew to the extent that the Scoletta came to be considered insufficient and in 1517 the construction of the Scuola Grande began.
In 1567, some rooms were made, in 1748 two windows were opened that looked towards the apses of the Chiesa dei Frari (see figs. 3-4); In 1749, some restoration work was carried out; in 1752 the wooden stairway was replaced by a stone one; in 1755 the old rooms of the Scoletta were connected to the warehouse of the Frati, that was rented to the Archconfraternity creating a mix up that was only resolved with a trade in property negotiated and agreed between the Archconfraternity, the State Property office and the orders of the Frati Minori, in a period between 1904 and 1914. More works of organisation were carried out in 1916.

The Scoletta first became the habitation of the Chaplain (1547), then a hospital for the poor of the confraternity (1551), then warehouse for the movables of the Scuola (1572), then habitation of the “capitanio” (1689), and then the seat of the Cancelleria from 1739 and then the archive for the writings of the Scuola from 1752. In recent years, the lower rooms of the Scoletta have been used as a warehouse, while the upper floor has been occasionally used for meetings, and some rooms and facilities have been placed at the disposition of the personnel of the Scuola.

THE BUILDING

The building is of a kind similar to the other Scuole minori. The use of barbicans, which animate the prospect facing towards the apses of the Frari, are similar to that of the little Scuola dei Calegheri in the nearby Campo di San Tomà. The building plan, characterised by a sequence of medium to large rooms, follows traditional schemes. The rooms of the albergo, the capitolo, the ragionataria etc. are all recognisable.
The main face looking on the Campo represents a little jewel of magnificent proportions, made of nothing, but rich in the values that sustained the Renaissance in Venice. There are only two materials, one superficial of natural marble, pointed and drawn by bright corners of Istrian stone, and doors and windows. Marble and stone: two whites which contrast with the diffuse colour of the brickwork and the painted plaster that crowds the panoramas of the still gothic city.

WORKS OF ART

On the face of the building (see. fig. 1), above the main door, a niche contains the statue of Saint Roch (San Rocco), by an anonymous artist, from the end of the Fifteenth Century.
Inside, there were collected a table depicting St. Roch and a canvas The Crucifix between Virgin and St. Roch, both from 1752 and attributed to Giuseppe Angeli, while on the altar there could be found the altar-piece La Madonna col Bambino appare ai Santi Rocco e Sebastiano, painted in 1756 by Maffeo Foresti. These works are at the moment in the Scrigni (coffers) of the Scuola Grande, waiting to be relocated to the Scoletta at the end of their current restoration.