The 2000-2005 conservation campaign was funded by the Getty Grant Program, the Eugene V. and Claire E. Thaw Charitable Trust, Bernadette J. Berger, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Hill Diedrick, the Charles H. Stout Foundation, Mrs. Julio Mario Santo Domingo, Young Friends of Save Venice, and the Arthur Loeb Foundation in memory of Prof. W. R. Rearick (1930–2004), art historian and Save Venice Board member; 2010 maintenance funded by Save Venice.

The Scuola Grande di San Marco was one of the six Scuole Grandi, or confraternities, that had an important presence in Venetian religious, civic, and cultural life. Founded in 1260 and originally located in the sestiere of Santa Croce, the Scuola moved to a new building in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo in 1437. In 1485 a fire nearly destroyed the Scuola Grande di San Marco, and the brethren of the confrater- nity decided to build a new and even more elaborate chapter house; major funding for the project came from the state, for this was the scuola dedicated to the patron saint of Venice. Having just completed the nearby church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, which was greatly admired for its beauty, the stone carvers Pietro Lombardo and his sons Tullio and Antonio were the obvious choice to build the new Scuola Grande di San Marco. In 1488 the Lombardo workshop and their collaborator Giovanni Buora began work on the new building, and by 1490 the lower portion of the façade was completed.

When the construction was half-finished the Scuola, perhaps due to pressure exerted by more influential brethren, summoned Pietro Lombardo’s competitor, the architect Mauro Codussi, to complete the project. Codussi finished the upper zone of the façade around 1495. The Lombardo workshop, although no longer in charge of the project, continued to supply Codussi with sculptures and ornamental elements. After the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797, the Scuola Grande di San Marco was suppressed by Napoleonic decree. In 1808 the Scuola, along with the adjacent Hospital of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti and the Dominican convent of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, was transformed into a military hospital. In 1819 it became the civic hospital of Venice, as it remains today. On the upper floor inside the Scuola, the original main chapter room with its painted wooden ceiling still houses paintings from the original decorative cycle by Domenico Tintoretto and Palma il Giovane.

Rich with representations of saints, virtues, angels, warriors, winged lions, and fantastical creatures, the façade promoted the various philanthropic activities of the confraternity.

Two sculptural elements, thought to be the work of Bartolomeo Bon, were salvaged from the Scuola’s earlier building and reused in the new façade: the figure of Charity was placed above the portal, and a relief of Saint Mark Venerated by Members of the Confraternity was inserted in the lunette below. The virtue of Charity was one of the most important icons on the façade, as it depicted one of the main functions of the confraternity: love for God and love for others through divine and human interaction.

The extensive Lombardo workshop made the remaining sculptural decoration on the lower part of the façade. Two notable reliefs by Tullio Lombardo, The Miracle of Saint Mark Healing the Hand of the Shoemaker Anianus and The Baptism of Anianus, flank the secondary portal. The reliefs depict episodes in the life of Saint Mark, set in an interesting false perspective view of the arcades of Alexandria.