Performing plague: Antonio Zanchi and the dynamics of spectatorship at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice

Abstract

Thirty‐five years after the 1630–31 plague outbreak in Venice, Antonio Zanchi created ‘The Virgin Appears to the Plague‐Stricken’, a monumental painting in the stairway of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco that memorialized this public crisis. Beyond satisfying expectations for commemorative art and asserting the continued importance of the cult of the plague saint Roch, the artist sought to design something provocative – a work capable of evoking an embodied experience for viewers. From his incorporation of the stairway's built environment, to his use of techniques popularized by seicento operas in which spectators became implicated in performances, Zanchi's plague retrospective is an exercise in active viewing. This article explores the variety of sources tapped by the artist, including traditional plague iconography developed in the city over the previous two centuries, and the Venetian tradition of spectacle and civic ritual. While the seventeenth century in Venice is often considered a period of artistic stagnation, bracketed between the vitality of the sixteenth century and the decadence of the eighteenth, this article demonstrates the creativity and innovation in Venetian painting in the aftermath of the 1630–31 plague.

De Venecia a Lerma: la recepción vocal e instrumental de Boccaccio. Música, epidemias y canon poético (1500-1650)

“…La crítica filológica reciente, especialmente anglosajona, ha examinado el papel que la literatura y el arte han tenido en la historia como catalizadores de los miedos y esperanzas individuales y colectivos ante el asedio de una pandemia (Panayi / Haug 2021: 147-149;Lawrence 2017: 866-880;Austin 2014: 72-115;Grigsby 2004: 107-178;Miller 2019: 3-17): no solo los textos narrativos, líricos o teatrales, sino los programas iconográficos nos describen una morbosa realidad que documentan desde una perspectiva social, religiosa, civil y sanitaria (Boeckl 2000: 19-43). San Luis Gonzaga, Santa Rosalía o San Sebastián serán los mediadores en la tragedia de una Europa moderna que, azotada por la peste desde el siglo XIV, reflejó en los sucesivos embates del último Renacimiento y del primer Barroco infinidad de escenas de lazaretos en los frescos y lienzos de Lazzaro Baldi, Camillo Landriani, Antonio Zanchi, Gian Battista della Rovere, Gian Battista Crespi, Cesare Nebbia, Domenico Gargiulo, Carlo Coppola, Angelo Caroselli, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, etc…(Bailey / Jones 2005: 177-250;Gear 2017).…”