Ground Floor Hall
The vast rectangular hall on the ground floor was an important place of passage and rest for anyone entering the School, but it was not a simple atrium; in fact, it was sometimes used for liturgical functions. It was the last one to be decorated.
Having completed, in 1581, the canvases for the Sala Superiore, Tintoretto was busy elsewhere, notably working on prestigious commissions for the Doge’s Palace. None the less by 1582 he had returned to the Scuola di San Rocco to execute the paintings for the Sala Terrena.
The eight large canvases on the wall show episodes from the life of the Virgin and the childhood of Christ.
- The Annunciation,
- The Adoration of the Magi,
- The Flight into Egypt,
- The Massacre of the Innocents,
- The Presentation at the Temple,
- The Assumption of the Virgin,
- St. Mary of Egypt and St. Mary Magdalene, near the windows at the back of the room.
With the installation of the Circumcision in the Sala Terrena in August 1587, the decoration of the School’s reception rooms was completed, in which Jacopo Tintoretto offers an incomparable picture of the density and completeness of the visionary intensity of his art throughout more than two decades of the final part of his creative career.
Gallery
