The Virgin Appears to the Plague Victims (detail)
by ZANCHI, Antonio, Oil on canvas
This is one of the most intense details of the great painting composed of two canvases divided only by a pilaster which, as the inscription on the bottom right of the larger canvas records, was finished by Antonio Zanchi on 14 October 1666. It was commissioned by Bernardo Briolo, the Guardian Grande.
The enormous composition in the grand staircase evokes the terrible plague of 1630 which caused so many bereavements among the Venetian population. Zanchi was inspired by the theme to create a severe and dramatic magnificence in his concept of composition and of pictorial content which shows traces of the visionary imagination of Tintoretto ever present in the Scuola di San Rocco.