Though not officially founded until the year 1594, the Scuola Grande dei Carmini traces its roots to 1286, when the institution was established as one of the earliest civic and charitable confraternities in Venice. Work on the Scuola Grande continued from 1626, when the order expanded its original building, through 1668, when it acquired a second building to accommodate its growing needs. (...)
Though not officially founded until the year 1594, the Scuola Grande dei Carmini traces its roots to 1286, when the institution was established as one of the earliest civic and charitable confraternities in Venice. Work on the Scuola Grande continued from 1626, when the order expanded its original building, through 1668, when it acquired a second building to accommodate its growing needs. The confraternity commissioned Baldassare Longhena to redesign both structures and produce a single, unified façade for the two buildings. Longhena, whose work in Venice (including the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute) made him one of the period’s most celebrated architects, worked on the project until his death in 1682. Construction continued under Longhena’s associate, the architect Antonio Gaspari. Works by contemporary Venetian painters and sculptors decorate interior spaces, and nine ceiling canvases by Giovanni Tiepolo, completed in 1739, adorn the scuola’s Sala Capitolare.
