Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
touch in
Presentation at the Temple
, where the infant Mary is steadied on her feet by a
cheerleading cherub.
Tintoretto's Virgin cycle ends with
Ascension
opposite; it's a dark and cataclysmic
work, compared with Titian's glowing version at I Frari.
Gregorian chant concerts
are occa-
sionally performed here (ask at the counter), and you can practically hear their echoes in
Tintoretto's haunting paintings.
Sala Grande Superiore
Take the grand
Scarpagnino staircase
to the Sala Grande Superiore, where you may be seized
with a powerful instinct to duck, given all the action in the
Old Testament ceiling scenes
- you
can almost hear the
swoop!
overhead as an angel dives to feed ailing Elijah. Grab a mirror
to avoid the otherwise inevitable neck strain as you follow dramatic, super-heroic gestures
through these ceiling panels. Mercy from above is a recurring theme, with Daniel's salva-
tion by angels, the miraculous fall of manna in the desert, and Elisha distributing bread to
the hungry.
Tintoretto's
New Testament wall scenes
read like a modern graphic novel, with eerie
lightning-bolt illumination striking his protagonists against the backdrop of the Black
Death. Scenes from Christ's life aren't in chronological order: birth and baptism are fol-
lowed by resurrection. The drama builds as background characters disappear into increas-
ingly dark canvases, until an X-shaped black void looms at the centre of
Agony in the
Garden
- a painting marked like a house doomed by plague contamination, with only a
glimmer of light on a still-distant horizon.
When Tintoretto painted these scenes, Venice's outlook was grim indeed: the plague
had just taken 50,000 Venetians, including the great colourist Titian, and the cause of and
cure for the bubonic plague would not be discovered for centuries. By focusing his talents
on dynamic lines instead of Titianesque colour, Tintoretto creates a shockingly modern,
moving parable for epidemics through the ages. A portrait of the artist with his paint-
brushes is captured in Francesco Pianta's recently restored 17th-century carved-wood
sculpture, third from the right beneath Tintoretto's New Testament masterpieces.
AN INTERFAITH EFFORT AGAINST THE PLAGUE
While the Black Death ravaged the rest of Europe, Venice mounted an interfaith effort against it. The city dedic-
ated a church and
scuola
(religious confraternity) to San Rocco where Venetians could pray for deliverance from
