VENETIAN SCUOLE: The Confraternities of Venice
1 day | £99 per person | 23 October 2026
Patronage and Magnificence in the Italian Renaissance
Carpaccio, Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, Tintoretto, Titian, Giambattista Tiepolo and more: almost all the greatest painters in the history of Venetian art worked for the confraternities (or scuole) of Venice at some point in their careers. This study day explores the art, architecture, and broader material culture of these guilds from their emergence in the Middle Ages to the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797, with a special emphasis on the Renaissance. Attendees will learn about the history, patronage and original appearance of the magnificent Scuole grandi (or great schools) as well the arts of a range of Scuole piccole (the smaller, often parish-based guilds). Founded in the Middle Ages as lay institutions and dedicated to charitable and devotional endeavours, the activities of the guilds were closely overseen by the Venetian State. Due to their focus on mutual aid and communal solidarity, the proliferation of these confraternities contributed to a system of city-wide welfare. In the ambit of the arts, these guilds proved to be prodigious patrons, their elaborate meeting houses, paintings, relics, chapels and altars contributing to the visual splendour of the lagoon city. From Tintoretto’s Crucifixion in the Scuole Grande di San Rocco (1565) about which John Ruskin pronounced ‘I never was so utterly crushed to the earth before any human intellect as I was today’, to the unparalleled charm of Carpaccio’s cycle at the Scuola Dalmata (1501-1507/12), the activities of the confraternities of Venice provide a fascinating lens through which to examine the artistic and architectural achievements of the Italian Renaissance.
Dr Marie-Louise Lillywhite will be leading a tour of Venetian Scuole in 2027. More details will be available soon.
This Lecture is held at the Art Workers' Guild in Queen Square London.
TIMETABLE FOR THE DAY
10.30-11.00 Welcome refreshments
11:00-12:00 – Lecture 1
12:00- 12.30 Refreshments
12:30-13:30 – Lecture 2
13:30-14:30 – Lunch
14:30-15:30 Lecture 3
Price: £99
Date:
23 October 2026
Your day includes:
- Three lectures
- Refreshments
- Light lunch
Expert Lecturer
Dr Marie-Louise Lillywhite
Marie-Louise Lillywhite is a research associate at Keble College and a member of the History Faculty at the University of Oxford. She is a specialist in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art and lived for many years in Venice, having previously taught at the University of Warwick. Marie-Louise has published on topics that include aspects of confraternal artistic patronage in early modern Italy; seventeenth-century drawings of women and children; the limits of artistic liberty in post-Tridentine Venice; and twentieth-century garden design in Sri Lanka. Her first monograph, entitled ‘'Reforming Art in Renaissance Venice', will be published with Cambridge University Press this year. This book explores how artists articulated belief in the decades following the Reformations, at a time when the significance and power of the sacred image was highly contested by both Protestants and Catholics.
