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What was San Salvador's organ like during the Renaissance?
Anyone visiting San Salvador church is struck by the size and magnificence of the organ choir and case, about which, however, little is known; although Massimo Bisson's degree thesis, L'architettura delle casse d'organo nelle chiese dell'Età Moderna (The Architecture of Organ Cases in Venetian Churches of the Modern Age - Venice 2003) does offer valuable evidence and suggests some interesting explanations regarding its history. The only certain date known is the year 1530, carved under the balcony. It is generally accepted as the year the monumental portal and the choir were built. They are attributed, along with the high altar, to Guglielmo de' Grigi. The current disposition of the forward part of the organ casework is the result of later rearrangement, perhaps in the 18th century. The original design may be inferred by examining the extremely elegant small doors painted by Francesco Vecellio (1475-1560). These two rectangular panels suggest that on the original front of the case there were no protruding parts. The two side pilaster strips are probably a makeshift expedient dating back to the 18th century. Today only the trabeation and the small doors are part of the original 12-foot case front. Everything leads us to imagine that the organ consisted of five bays and looked very much like the 15th century organs in St. Mark's Basilica. Indeed, if the existing pilaster strips were removed, the casework front would be an almost square bay, altogether similar to the organ case still to be seen in Valvasone, the only surviving example of St. Mark's Basilica's early musical instruments. In a recent restoration, the Monuments and Fine Arts Service inadvertently altered an iconographic parallelism between the organ in San Salvador and the historic organ in St. Mark's Basilica. In fact, the latter presented on the inside of the small case doors Christ's Resurrection and Ascension, in direct correspondence on San Salvador's organ to the Resurrection and Transfiguration, now however inverted externally. Someday this peculiar error will be corrected.
Reconstruction of the original state of San Salvador's organ (1530).
The front five bays of pipes, which no longer exists, can be seen in the historically contemporary organ in Valvasone (1532-5).
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