June 19th – Visit to the Scuola Dalmata

We visited the Scuola Dalmata, a confraternal organization house containing many famous Carpaccio paintings and a historic, carved-stone facade.

We got a small tour of the storage area next to the main room which served as a temporary painting conservation workshop. When speaking with the conservator at work there, we learned about the conservation track in Italy. There is a three-year program here in Venice that specializes in many different disciplines: paintings, sculptures, books, etc. This program does not grant a full conservator’s license though, only an apprentice or assistant’s license. The most famous and most popular programs are in Florence and Rome respectively, run for five years, and grant a full conservator’s license.

After the inside of the Scuola, we got a tour of the facade, climbing up the many layers of scaffolding constructed on the outside of the building. There were a handful of students who were graduating from the Venice conservation school working on the wrought-iron window grates and power washing the water-stained stones. We saw places where old scaffolding had been bolted into the rock, as well as old sculptures and small remnants of the color that decorated them.

Here is the link to Save Venice’s informational page on the Scuola Dalmata: https://www.savevenice.org/project/carpaccio-cycle-in-the-scuola-dalmata

Please see the pictures below of our visit!