[2][3] Its origins are uncertain: it might have been constructed as a prayer room for a group of Provençal Jews soon after their arrival in Venice, or as a private synagogue for a prominent local family.

In the Venetian context, however, the term has a further connotation: Scuola was in fact the name given to Christian confraternity institutions devoted to assisting those in need, the most famous being the six Scuole Grandi of Venice.

A stone plaque placed to the left of the bimah records the gift of 180 ducats, donated by a man named Shlomo in 1532 for the synagogue's construction.

[25] Starting in 1968, the building underwent major restoration interventions operated by the World Monuments Fund and the Italian Ministry for Cultural Assets and Environments, which included stabilization of the foundations and wall insulation.

An anonymous exterior was an indispensable feature for synagogues built in Venice in the early decades of the sixteenth century, since Jewish places of worship—although tolerated—were still formally prohibited at that time.

The original function of such space — reminiscent of the anteroom (polish in Yiddish) often found in Central European synagogue buildings — is not clear; however, its layout suggests that it may have initially served as a matroneum.

The ark has a tripartite structure: the central section hosts the niche for the Torah scrolls, surmounted by a baroque broken pediment and flanked by two square pillars and two fluted Corinthian columns; the two lateral sections feature the seats for the parnassim with ornated curved backs, crowned by smaller broken pediments and enclosed on each side by Corinthian columns with oblique and vertical fluting.

[31] The marble steps leading to the closet feature an obscure inscriptions in Hebrew, which reads: The gift of Joshua Moshe in memory of his brother who was slaughtered like a goat.

[46] The raised polygonal pulpit, reached through five wooden steps and delicately decorated in the Rococo style, is surmounted by a semi-elliptical arch supported by four original columns of interlacing branches,[10] reminiscent of the two pillars on the porch of Solomon's Temple.

[46] The eighteenth-century rearrangement of this section of the synagogue was most assuredly carried out by local Christian architect Bartolomeo Scalfurotto, who in the same period (around 1731) was working on the refurbishment of the façade of the Doge's Palace.

[53][i] Two of the four walls are noteworthy for the presence of eight wooden panels with relief medallions depicting biblical episodes from the Book of Exodus, including the city of Jericho, the Crossing of the Red Sea, the Altar of Sacrifice, the Manna, the Ark on the banks of the Jordan River, Korah, the gift of the Torah, and Moses making water flow from the rock.

[46] The medallions are in fact reminiscent of oval cartouches displayed on the frontispieces of Jewish books printed in Kraków in the late sixteenth century.