Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni

Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni Review

Founded in 1451 by the Dalmatian community, this small scuola was, and still is, a social and cultural center for migrants from what is now Croatia. It contains one of Italy's most beautiful rooms, harmoniously decorated between 1502 and 1507 by Vittore Carpaccio. Carpaccio generally painted legendary and religious figures against backgrounds of contemporary Venetian architecture, but here, there is also perhaps one of the first instances of "Orientalism" in western painting. Note the turbans and exotic dress of those being baptized and converted, and even the imagined, arid Middle Eastern or North African landscape in the background of several of the paintings. Here, in a scuola for immigrants, Carpaccio focuses on "foreign" saints especially venerated in Dalmatia: Saints George, Tryphone, and Jerome. He combined keen empirical observation with fantasy, a sense of warm color, and late medieval realism. (Look for the priests fleeing Saint Jerome's lion, or the body parts in the dragon's lair.) The opening hours are quite flexible. Since this is a "must see" site, check to confirm opening hours so that you won't be disappointed.