In Scuola dei Schiavoni

In the Scuola dei Schiavoni there hang portraits of shaven-headed, mustachioed men with curved sabers. They are Balkan gentlemen, Croats and Bosnians, warriors, sailors and merchants, most, presumably from the Dalmatian possessions of the Venetian Republic. Several cities in Dalmatia, including Ragusa – today’s Dubrovnik – had once competed with Venice for the control of the Adriatic trade and, having lost, ended up as Venetian possessions. Today there are many reminders of the Slavic connection in the city, not least the very common Venetian girl’s name – Marisa.

The scuola’s most famous paintings are by Carpaccio. They show events in the lives of various saints associated with the East and thus create the opportunity to paint pretty Croatian girls with good skin and in national costumes. The longest cycle here is of St Jerome.

The best known story about St Jerome reports that while living in the desert the saint once met a lion with a wounded paw. The saint healed the paw and the lion became his faithful life companion. St Jerome is usually represented with a lion, but in the Scuola dei Schiavoni the lion is the central element of the story; one of the largest paintings being of St Jerome returning to his monastery from the desert, with the lion in tow, and his fellow monks fleeing in panic every which way, arms akimbo.

The symbolism should be easy to read, even if no one seems to have noticed. The lion, is of course also St Mark’s lion, the symbol of Venice. The Schiavoni have tamed it and it did them no harm. Others, back in Dalmatia or Bosnia, might think the lion terrible, but in fact, for the Schiavoni of Venice, the lion was but a pussycat.