The History and Decoration of the Church of S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice

The Benedictine monastery church of San Giorgio Maggiore was begun in 1566 by the architect Andrea Palladio. The completion of its facade in 1610 culminated the campaign of building and decoration. These dates provide the general termini for an investigation of the church's painted, sculptural, and architectural decoration. The campaign was extensive and remarkable for being undertaken and completed during a limited span of time, its unity benefitting from this compressed historical moment. The most intense phase was during the last decades of the sixteenth century, a critical period of Venetian social and political history when Venetian institutions were being re-examined by a significant reform group within the patriciate, a group that included lay patrons of the church and for whom expressions of civic piety represented an important concern. The commissioning body at San Giorgio was a member of the Cassinese Congregation, a reform branch of the Benedictine Order. The history of the monastery by monk Fortunato Olmo (1619) forms the basis for subsequent studies. The investigation of San Giorgio's choir and its furnishings encompasses its relation to Cassinese spirituality, the development of the retrochoir and its association with ideals of reform, questions concerning Palladio's authorship, and the fabrication of the choir stalls with their narrative relief panels by Albert van den Brulle depicting the life of S. Benedict. Sculptures and altarpieces are discussed in terms of their function and disposition, from private monastic spaces to areas of lay participation. The artists chosen to execute the commissions included sculptors Nicolo Roccatagliata, Girolamo Campagna, Alessandro Vittoria, painters Guiseppe Porta, Antonio Vassilachi, Jacopo Tintoretto, Domenico Tintoretto, Jacopo Bassano, and Leandro Bassano. The examination of the facade and its execution by the cantiere engages questions concerning its attribution to Palladio and its iconographic scheme; its program of decoration commemorates the history of the island and its relationship to the Republic, in memorials to heroic doges of the past and in tomb monuments celebrating contemporary patrons. The interactions of patrons and producers describe a complex pattern of patronage, one that establishes responses of forms and styles of art to the social fabric of early modern Venice.