Restored from 1976 to 1981 with Save Venice general funds.

The interior of the Scuola Levantina, the synagogue built in 1689 by the Sephardic community in Venice, is noted for its finely carved woodwork, traditionally attributed to Andrea Brustolon (1662–1732) and his atelier.

In 1541, the Venetian senate made an agreement with an affluent group of Levantine merchants allowing them to live in an area of the Ghetto Vecchio; the Ghetto Nuovo was occupied already by Ashkenazi Jews of German and French origin, and later by Italian Jews, each with their own synagogue. The Levantine Jews originally came from Spain and Portugal but fled during the Inquisition and came to Venice by way of the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian colony of Corfu in the East, hence the term “Levantine.”

They formed a Sephardic community and immediately founded a synagogue called the Scuola Levantina, the first in the Ghetto that was a new building and not an adaptation of a preexisting structure. In 1680 the first Levantine synagogue was torn down and a larger, more prestigious building was erected, competing with the neighboring Spanish synagogue, built in the 1650s in the style of Baldassare Longhena.

The sixteenth-century furnishings from the private yeshiva of the Luzzatto family, known as the Scuola Luzzatto, were moved from their original location in the Ghetto Nuovo to the small ground-floor room of the Scuola Levantina in 1836. The space is used as a study room, retaining the original function of the Scuola Luzzatto.

During Save Venice’s restoration campaign beginning in the 1970s, a series of interventions took place, including structural reinforcement, the replastering of the exterior, the repair of the roof, the installation of a heating system, the restoration of carved woodwork, the replacement of damask panels in the main hall, and the refurbishment of the Scuola Luzzatto. This work was undertaken by conservators from the Marascalchi firm, the Capovilla firm, and Maximilian Leuthenmayr, with the guidance of project director Renato Padoan of the Superintendency of Monuments of Venice.

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.

Unidentified artists
Scuola Levantina
1680

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