A STORY OF PLAGUE AND RESURRECTION

This is the Church of San Rocco, Saint Roch, as we call him. This is one of the five
special Venetian churches. They were all built to ward off the Black Death. They
are what they call "plague churches", the five plague churches of Venice.

The Black Death, bubonic plague, brought terror to all of Europe. But it hit Venice
with special severity. The first great outbreak, in 1348, killed 70,000 Venetians out
of a population of 100,000. And in the next 300 years, there were 70 more of these
epidemics. Whatever the Venetians did, the plague kept returning.

They say it originated in China and that the rats which carried it were particularly
fond of spice ships. And, thus, Venice became the world's leading importer of
plague rats.

The epidemic of 1576 was another particularly bad one. It killed a quarter of
Venice's population. Among them, the great painter Titian.

At the Scuola San Rocco, Tintoretto, plague painter extraordinaire, redoubled his
remarkable efforts to paint Venice to safety.

San Rocco, St. Roch, was the saint you prayed to

to ward off the Black Death. And this scuola here,
the Scuola San Rocco, quickly became the richest
charity institution in Venice.

That is St. Roch there. You can always tell him in

art because he is always showing you a naked leg,
so you can see the puss-filled boil on his thigh,
that's the first sign of the Black Death.

If you had money, you gave it to the Scuola San

Rocco to protect you. And Tintoretto gave not
only money but a huge slab of his working life as
well, as he filled the darkness of San Rocco with
so much of his art. He got paid occasionally, bits
and pieces, but never what it would really have
cost to do all this.

And there was a story doing the rounds in the

Renaissance that Tintoretto himself had been
saved from the plague and that to thank God, he
undertook to finish this great project.

Now, we don't know if that's true, but we do know, because you can feel it in here,
that all this was personal. There are 52 paintings by Tintoretto in the Scuola San
Rocco. That's right, 52! And the first one he painted shows St. Roch in pink going
up to heaven.
The second was this, Tintoretto's huge ”Crucifixion”.
This has been described as the greatest Renaissance painting and you can see why.
What scale! What drama! What power!

Please see the full story at

http://visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/crucifixion-tintoretto.htm or
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-the-crucifixion-
1565-518cm-x-1224-cm-tintoretto-2270951.html

Jesus is shown dying on the cross to save us and, in this instance, specifically to
save Venice from the Black Death.

As you look at this painting, you just know this isn't just art. This is a Story,
Drama, Salvation in three dark dimensions. And it's here because the Renaissance
believed that art had talismanic power.

That it could save Venice, combat the plague and change the future.

And that's what the Renaissance is really about, the power of art.