In his support of public funding for the restoration of Santa Maria Maggiore, Podestà Morosini made the direct connection between devotion, good works, and divine favor. The Venetian noble reminded the citizens of Treviso that “our” hospital brought honor to the Virgin Mary and therefore protected the city from divine wrath. Morosini's justification reveals that the hospital had become more than one brotherhood's expression of piety. Santa Maria dei Battuti's hospital had been transformed into a symbol of the city that protected the community from disaster. In the early sixteenth century, the relationship between Venice and its subject city would be severely tested by war, famine, and disease. Invading armies would attempt to shake the Trevisan allegiance to Venice, and Venetian authorities would be forced to consider local prerogative versus the needs of the Venetian state. As Morosini's sentiments predicted, during the first decades of the sixteenth century, the hospital would be looked to as a beacon of hope. When rumors of corruption and inefficiency darkened the confraternity's reputation, the communal government exercised its supervisory authority to reform the noble institution and powerful civic symbol.

The beginning of the sixteenth century did not bode well for Venice. Almost all of Europe (France, the Holy Roman empire, Spain, the Papal States, Ferrara, and Mantua) had organized against Venice in the League of Cambrai.1 From 1509 to 1517, mercenaries scorched the land and murdered peasants, plunging Venice into economic and political crisis. A few weeks after the crushing defeat at Agnadello (14 May 1509), foreign troops swept across northern Italy, and the Venetians lost almost their entire mainland state, which had taken a century to construct.