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

Abstract

AbstractThirty‐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.