Statute and Mariegola

The term Mariegola means madre regola (mother rule), or the complete statutory regulations. The same term is used for the matricola (matricule, or roll), the list of members enrolled in the brotherhood. Thirteen volumes of the Mariegole della Scuola Grande are conserved in the Venice State Archives, partly as statutes and partly as lists of brothers. A transcription of Mariegola No. 8 containing the statutory chapters between 1261, the year the Scuola was founded, and 1457 was published by the Scuola in 2003, edited by Gian Andrea Simeone. It also contains the list of brothers shown in Mariegola No. 5.

The Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista of Venice was founded in 1261. It was subject to Napoleonic suppression in 1806, but was refounded in 1856 under the Lombard-Veneto Kingdom under the name of ‘Corporazione delle Arti Edificatorie di Mutuo Soccorso nella Scuola di S. Giovanni Evangelista in Venezia’. It has continued to carry out its social and spiritual activities since that year without interruption, as a body endowed with personality, based in Venice at the monumental buildings it owns.
Its social and cultural activities comply with civil law; its religiously inspired activities to the indications of the canonical discipline. On 14 May 2006, by decision of the special General Assembly, its original name of ‘Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista di Venezia’ was reinstated.

The Scuola is now a recognised non-profit association whose constituent aims are:

• to provide for the conservation of its historic-artistic property and the appreciation of this in the context of Venice;
• to continue to revive the ancient traditions for which it was founded, whose members share its charitable welfare, spiritual and cultural aims.