Art, faith, and medicine in Tintoretto's Venice

"Five hundred years after his birth, Venice celebrates the artistic achievements and era of Jacopo Tintoretto. The success of Jacopo and his son Domenico is inextricably linked to the Scuola Grande di San Marco. Indeed, Jacopo created some of the most famous paintings in 16th-century Venetian art for the Scuola's chapter hall. Thanks to Domenico's contribution, the ensemble commenced by his father was the most gradiose cycle devoted to the patron saint of Venice since the decoration of Saint Mark's Basilica. Founded in 1260-21 as a flagellant congregation, the Scuola became a charitable institution that, among other aims, provided medical care for the poorest of its members. After its suppression in 1806, the Scuola house the Venice City Hospital until the mid-20th century, when it was turned into a library with 18,000 medical and scientific volumes. This book offers the reader an unprecendented and fascinating glimpse of life in Tintoretto's Venice. Analyzing the themes of the exhibition in depth, the catalogue explores the relation between devotional activities, medical practices, anatomical studies and images of the human body by examining a wide range of period sources, including paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, musical scores, illustrated books, engravings, printing plates and surgical instruments." Bodies in ecstasy, bodies in tortuous pain, bodies devoid of life and bodies rising to the afterlife: the subject of the human is central to the work Tintoretto (1519-94) accomplished at the Scuola Grande di San Marco, home to the monumental library and medical museum of Venice's Ospedale Civile, and thus a fitting backdrop to Art, Faith and Medicine in Tintoretto's Venice, a volume that explores the representation of the human body in artistic and medical traditions in an effort to understand the role of idealized and nonidealized bodies in Renaissance culture. This book draws on archival documents, illuminated manuscripts, rare books, prints, medals, drawings and paintings to examine the interconnection between art and medicine, anatomical studies and devotional belief. Special topics such as medical care for the monks of the Scuola further enliven this central theme Investment in charity : the welfare activities of the Scuola Grande di San Marco in the sixteenth century / Paola Benussi -- Tommaso Giannotti Rangone: a life modeled on books and (not just medical) art / Sabrina Minuzzi -- 'When God's Majesty Publicly Scourges a People': combating plague in sixteenth-century Venice / Michelle Laughran -- Domenico Tintoretto and the 1630-31 plague / Jennifer Gear -- Animating the body : the roles and reasons for anatomical study in the Renaissance / Cynthia Klestinec -- Domenico Tintoretto's life-drawing: anatomy of an artistic reform / Gabriele Matino -- Learned hands: skills, experience, and knowledge in sixteenth-century surgery / Paola Savoia -- Bookish anatomies : the medical manual in the first century of printing / Ilaria Andreoli -- Chronology / Gabriel Matino -- List of exhibited works.