Dal museo al territorio: indagini sulla pittura veneta del Rinascimento nelle Gallerie dell'Accademia, contesti di provenienza e strategie di restituzione

This research investigates the physical spaces and the social and historical-artistic contexts of six Scuole Piccole in Venice, with the aim of reconstructing the broken links between the confraternities’ representative headquarters – suppressed in the early Nineteenth Century following Napoleonic decrees – and the material heritage originally associated with these environments. The starting point of the investigation is a selection of paintings now preserved in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice – artworks by Lazzaro Bastiani, Antonio, Bartolomeo and Alvise Vivarini, Vincenzo Catena, Cima da Conegliano, Palma il Vecchio, Bonifacio de’ Pitati, Damiano Mazza, Carletto Caliari, and Pietro Liberi – which originally formed part of the decoration of the devotional fraternities dedicated to St. Jerome and to the Assumption of Mary in Santa Maria Maggiore and of the guilds of stonecutters, bricklayers, furriers, and tailors. Alongside the pictorial testimonies, particular attention has been devoted to the furnishings, liturgical objects, and treasures of the confraternities, which were completely dispersed after the Napoleonic suppressions. Considering this wide range of objects belonging to the world of the decorative arts – now lost, but still traceable in the inventories preserved in the mariegola – makes it possible to offer a more comprehensive image of confraternal life, highlighting the devotional practices and the identity features of these key institutions of early modern Venice. From a methodological perspective, the reconstruction of the six contexts was carried out through the re-examination of archival sources, which provide valuable details on the management, members, and possessions of the confraternities. In particular, the reassessment of the mariegole has made it possible to propose new hypotheses concerning the layout of the headquarters of San Girolamo, the Assunta, bricklayers’, and tailors’ guilds. In the cases of the confraternities of the Assunta and the tagiapiera, moreover, the analysis has clarified the social networks that played a role in key moments of their history: in the Assunta, the prominent role of the apothecaries at the time of the foundation has been identified, while for the tagiapiera it has been possible to establish the identity of the commissioner of the altarpiece painted by Vincenzo Catena on the occasion of the transfer of the confraternity’s headquarters to Sant’Aponal in 1515. Looking ahead, this research points towards the use of 3D modeling and design software for the virtual reconstruction of confraternal spaces. Such tools would make it possible to restore—at least virtually—the complexity of lost physical environments, offering significant opportunities for museums in the fields of cultural enhancement and public engagement, especially for non-specialist audiences.