Often unnoticed, this is the wonderful Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, literally St. George’s School of the Slaves. This was one of many Nation Schools in the city, which the Venetian state allotted to a community of a specific foreign country that was under its rule. San Giorgio here was given to the Dalmatians, the peoples from the other side of the Adriatic, in modern Balcan territory. Such was the power of Venice, and especially the perception of its power, that it allowed foreign communities to work, live and prosper within it, in the knowledge that it would only increase its own wealth. San Giorgio degli Schiavoni is the only standing Nation School today because most were sadly destroyed or reutilised by Napoleon after 1806. It is most famous for a series of unmissable paintings by Vittore Carpaccio, one of the most brilliant Renaissance painters ever.
