Opening Or Drawer Which Could Just Hold a Tiny Infant
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THE CHURCH OF, THE PIETA by DIANA E. KALEY INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR MONUMENTS, INC. S. Polo 2454 (Ai Frari) - 30125 Venezia, Halla 3624 Legation Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20015 TO MY MOTHER INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR MONUMENTS 3624 LEGATION AVENUE. N. W. WASHINGTON. O. C. 20015 TEL (202) 726.5225 July 1,1980 Dear Reader, Someone once observed that, while other cities might have admirers, only Venice has lovers. The publication of this book is made possible by two such individuals: Miss Diana E. Kaley, its author, and Miss Mary M. Davis, Executive Vice President of Samuel H. Kress Foundation, which subsidized its publication. For the past seven years, Diana Kaley has been Director ofour Venice Committee office and Information Center in the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista and invaluable because ofher able supervision of many of IFM's restorations in Venice, including that of the Pieta, which she pursued with exceptional dedication and skill. Mary Davis has been a regular visitor to Venice since the mid-1960s. Because of her background in Art History, she was saddened at the condition ofthe Church of Santa Maria della Pieta in which she recognized the deterioration in the fabric ofthe building and in the ceiling paintings by Tiepolo. In 1969 she submitted to the Board of Trustees of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation a proposal for the repair of the roof and the restoration of the Tiepolos. Upon completion ofthis work, she urged the Foundation's Board to complete the restoration of the entire church and obtained additional funds for its accomplishment. In writing this book, Diana Kaley pored over dusty manuscripts for many months, working long hours after her normal day at the Informa,tion Center. At this writing, Miss Kaley is moving from Venice and, as a going-away present to the International Fund for Monuments, she is donating the rights to her splendid book on the history of the Church of Santa Maria della Pieta. Sincerely yours, Limited edition James A. Gray Executive Director I The interior ofthe church seen through the wrought-iron gates. he church of Santa Maria della Visitazione or the Pieta was built in t.he eighteenth century by the Foundling Hospital of the Pieta to provide a spacious and dignified setting for the religious ceremonies with musical accompaniment for which the hospital was famous. Thus, the key to understanding the unusual architecture ofthis building, so different from the traditional Venetian church, can be found in the develo"pment ofthe Ospedale della Pieta from the years ofits foundation in the fourteenth century. In early fourteenth-century Venice, organized assistance for those in distress was very limited. The pilgrim "hospitals" and the leprosary were little more than quarantine centers designed to shield the citizenry from leprosy or other infectious diseases brought by pilgrims passing through Venice on their way to or from the Holy Land. The philanthropic works ofthe first Venetian lay confraternities did not reach far beyond their own membership. The very concept of Christian charity seemed remote from the everyday struggle to survive and even the sight of newborn infants killed or left to die on the public way met with general indifference. It was only in 1336, when a Franciscan friar named Pietro of Assisi arrived in Venice, that the people at last began to concern themselv.es with the fate ofthe ever-increasing numbers offoundlings in their city. Although there were isolated examples elsewhere of foundling hospitals even before Fra Pietro started his crusade to save the infants, his initiative was still exceptional. Judging by the results it was also timely, for the Venetians responded generously with alms and, above· all, legacies to his appeal for "pieta"-compassion. The earliest known ofthese legacies is in the will of one Domenico Trevisan dated August la, 1336, the very year of Fra Pietro's arrival: "I also desire and command that for the support ofthe boys and girls who are thrown out 5 Plaque listing indulgencesgranted to those who gave alms to the Pieta (from the papacy of Clement VI, 1342-1352). , recognition to the Ospedale della Pieta as well as to the male Confraternity of San Francesco, founded by Fra Pietro to assist in caring-for the foundlings and in gathering them in from the streets. Soon the houses at San Francesco della Vigna were filled to overflowing, and Fra Pietro moved the foundling girls to a house near the Church of the Celestia, placing them under the supervision of the newly-created confraternity ofmatrons dedicated to S. Maria dell'Umilta. This still did not suffice so the friar bought property in the parish of San Giovanni in Bragora some time before September 1346, the date of a will leaving five lire "to Fra Petruzo of the hospital of infants at sen Zane Bragola."3 A papal dispensation allowed Fra Pietro to leave his properties to the Ospedale della Pieta when he died in 1349. His successor was another friar, Fra Pacino, who directed the hospital until 1353 when it was established that a matron would be elected from S. Maria dell'Umilta and named "priora" after confirmation by the Doge. This effectively placed the Pieta under the Republic's official and who are called the pietta there be given four pounds for God and jurisdiction although it continued to be supported almost entirely by for my soul."! Fra Pietruzzo della Pieta, as he came to be called, rented private donations. The religious indulgences did much to ensure a seventeen houses near San Francesco della Vigna, establishing a steady flow ofthese donations, as did the Republic's decree of 1436, foundling hospital for the infants he rescued from the streets. These requiring any notary drawing up a will to remind the testator ofthe were usually illegitimate children or the last born in a family with too hospital's existence. In addition, various State rulings granted the Pieta many mouths to feed. In times of plague or epidemic, orphans too yearly supplies ofgrain, wine and firewood, as well as occasional large would be brought to the "Pieta," greatly overburdening its resources sums of money. and adding to the need for alms. The number of foundlings cared for by the Ospedale della Pieta grew A plaque dating from the papacy of Clement VI (1342-1352) lists steadily: there were 4,360 in 1466; by July 1488, the hospital being the indulgences granted to benefactors ofthe foundling hospital: "Pope "so narrow and restricted,"4 it had proved necessary to board 329 Clement VI one year forty days of pardon to each person who gives children in the country-a solution that was to be adopted with alms to the infants of the Pietate-Messer the Patriarch of Grado Messer increasing frequency in the years that followed. The hospital was the Bishop of Castelo forty days-the sum of the above for the Pietade continually acquiring new properties by donation or by purchase, and, being one year and 120 days as well as many other graces."2 This would as chance would have it, it was Fra Pietro's housing in the Parish of have represented a powerful attraction for donations, allowing Fra San Giovanni in Bragora that was enlarged when space was needed. In Pietruzzo to take in ever more children. In 1343 he received permission 1515, fourteen more houses were acquired near the Bragora and the from the Venetian Republic to enlarge his hospital. In 1345 he was whole hospital was then united in this area, leaving the premises at authorized to quest for gifts ofwine for his wetnurses. Finally, a decree San Francesco della Vigna and at the Celestia. approved by the Maggior Consiglio on July 18th, 1346 gave legal 7 6 The Ospedale della Pieta and its 16th-century oratory before the building ofthe new church. There followed a time when famine, war, and mass immigration from the countryside led to a dramatic increase in the number of aband:oned infants in Venice. Most ofthese were brought to the,Pieta's "scaffetta" -a type of opening or drawer which could just hold a tiny infant. With the child there would often be found some trinket or some image torn in half, which was left by the mother so that one day if she wished to reclaim her child, she could do so by presenting the matching portion. The uncertain times meant added responsibilities for the hospital while the amount of money available for donations decreased and was now often shared with the new Venetian hospitals ofthe Incurabili and the Derelitti. In 1525, a ruling made in the Consiglio di Pregadi spoke of the appalling situation at the Pieta where the wetnurses were obliged to feed four infants at once. Matters had not improved by 1548, when a plaque was placed outside the hospital calling on God to "strike with maledictions and excommunications" those who, having the means to support their children-"whether legitimate or natural"-nonetheless abandoned them at the Pieta. Yet the Ospedale della Pieta had become an essential part of the although ultimate jurisdiction still lay in the hands ofthe Doge and, social fabric that ensured Venice's stability, and it was hardly in the for matters pertaining to the cult, ofthe Primicerio or Arch-Priest of interest of the Most Serene Republic to allow the hospital to falter. So St. Mark's. The Doge's official patronage was most important, for it new privileges were granted to the Pieta-for example, the right to sell protected the Ospedale della Pieta from the interference both of the or hire out one boat in each ferry station in Venice and the right to use local magistracy and ofthe local Church, giving it a valuable autonomy.