Restored in 2018 with Save Venice general funds.

Jacopo Tintoretto, in collaboration with his workshop assistant Pauwels Franck (also known as Paolo Fiammingo), designed these three paintings to decorate the lateral walls of the presbytery and the nave of the church of San Rocco. They depict scenes from the life of the church’s titular saint, whose relics were preserved in the church since their arrival in Venice in 1485. Devotion to Saint Roch grew immensely in this period given his association with the plague, from which he was miraculously healed.

The three canvases were executed in two different phases: Saint Roch Healing the Animals was completed in 1567, whereas the Capture of Saint Roch at the Battle of Montpellier and Saint Roch in the Wilderness date to 1575-77. In the earliest of these works, Saint Roch offers his curative blessing to wild animals. The first among these is the lion, the symbol of Venice as if to affirm the Republic’s special protection by the saint. The scene of the Capture contrasts greatly with the bucolic Healing. Accused of being a spy, Saint Roch is arrested by soldiers and subsequently imprisoned. Tintoretto takes an inventive approach to depicting the event, imagining the capture as an unusually realistic battle scene, with hurtling bodies and horses tossed into the air by a violent explosion at the right. The third among these works, Saint Roch in the Wilderness, was primarily executed by Paolo Fiammingo, a Flemish artist then active in Tintoretto’s workshop and an expert in landscape painting. In the foreground, Saint Roch reclines in prayer as his faithful dog emerges from behind the hill on the right, carrying a loaf of bread in its mouth to feed the saint.

Each of these paintings had been oddly repositioned in the twentieth century, so following the conservative maintenance treatment undertaken in 2018 by Mariastella Volpin, the canvases were re-installed in the original positions for which they had been intended.

For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.

Jacopo Tintoretto
Saint Roch Healing the Animals
1567, oil on canvas
230 x 670 cm

Jacopo Tintoretto
Capture of Saint Roch at the Battle of Montpellier
c. 1575-77, oil on canvas
241 x 676 cm

Paolo Fiammingo [attr.]
Saint Roch in the Wilderness
c. 1575-77, oil on canvas
230 x 670 cm

Dalla Costa, Thomas, Robert Echols, and Frederick Ilchman, eds. Tintoretto in Venice: A Guide. Venice: Marsilio, 2018

Echols, Robert and Frederick Ilchman. Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018

Mason, Stefania. Dentro e fuori la bottega di Tintoretto: il caso di Paolo Fiammingo. “Artibus et Historiae,” 81, 2020, pp. 223-236