News & Stories

Created in 2019 by Lorenzo Spolaor and Alex Caliman

You can now travel back in time to a 16th-century historic landmark in Venice thanks to a virtual reconstruction funded by Save Venice. The interactive project was created by Lorenzo Spolaor and Alex Caliman and features the Oratory of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista.

View the Virtual Reconstruction

The Oratory of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista takes its name from two fragments of wood, believed to be relics of the Cross on which Christ died, which were donated to the Scuola in 1369 by Philippe de Mezières, great chancellor of the order of Cyprus and Jerusalem. The important relic was received with great solemnity and was credited for a series of miraculous events in Venice that occurred between 1369 and 1480. These events are immortalized in the famous “Miracles of the True Cross” painting cycle created between 1494 and 1502, with works by Gentile Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio, Giovanni Mansueti, Lazzaro Bastiani, Benedetto Diana and Pietro Perugino.

The virtual reconstruction of the Oratory is based on the appearance of the room between the completion of the painting cycle in 1502 and the first documented major architectural transformation of the space in 1544. The original arrangement of the canvases was first modified during the 1544 renovation when two doors were installed to create access to the new Sala dell’Albergo (board room), and again in 1568 to make room for a new stone altar designed by Gianantonio Rusconi.

In the eighteenth century, Bernardino Maccaruzzi, a pupil of Giorgio Massari, radically transformed the Oratory into the bright rococo chapel we still see today. In 1806 following the Napoleonic Suppressions of the Scuola, the canvases became state property and were moved to the Gallerie dell’Accademia where they have been on display since 1820.

In addition to funding the creation of the virtual reconstruction of the painting cycle in the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, Save Venice is now funding the conservation of Vittore Carpaccio’s iconic Miracle of the Relic of the True Cross at the Rialto Bridge and hopes to continue with the entire True Cross Cycle in the Accademia.