La chiesa di San Sebastiano a Venezia, Paolo Veronese, le implicazioni albanesi: una storia tutta da riscrivere.

Abstract

The church of San Sebastiano in Venice, and its adjoining convent of the Girolamini, is considered as the "temple" of Paolo Veronese, entirely painted by him and therefore the destination of international scholars and visitors. The study of the recovered archival sources belonging to the monastery have unearthed the tumultuous events that for about half a century, in the first half of the sixteenth century, shook the convent during the conflicts with two Albanian priests: Niccolò Franco and Girolamo Messio. The cause of the dispute was the possession of a priory in Treviso, Santa Felicita of Romano. The conflict quickly became a battleground between church and state arguing about the rights of appointment of ecclesiastical offices. The Albanian side had an unconditional support from Rome, especially by Pope Paul III. In 1553, a "Concordio" put an end to the dispute and the year of 1554 saw the beginning of Paolo Veronese’s pictorial cycle. From the documents recovered emerges indeed a new personality to be ascribed to the history of Albanian culture, namely Girolamo Messio, who is the author of some writings. Above all, a new interpretive trail of all the decoration of the church is unveiled, which allows to read the metaphorical references to the geopolitical role of Scanderbeg's Albania as a confessional boundary. Therefore follows a new interpretive hypothesis of the "temple" of Paolo Veronese, an Albanian protagonist.