Unlike the more famous Scuole Grandi, membership in them was not restricted to citizens and indeed some of them were formed specifically for foreigners.
Most Scuole, the scolae communes, were devoted to a particular saint or devotional cult, but some, the scuole delle arti, were associated with specific crafts or trade guild, and often obligatory for the members of that trade.
[1] The confraternities were officially divided into Piccole 'small' and Grandi 'great' in 1467.
[2] Almost all scuole, grandi and piccoli, were suppressed by Eugène de Beauharnais, the Napoleonic Viceroy of Italy, in 1806–1807.
[1] Some Scuole Piccoli had dedicated meeting houses; many did not, and met in parish or conventual churches.