A group whose work shares common stylistic traits. Sometimes a work is attributed to the school of an artist when a confident attribution cannot be made. In art, the term school does not refer to a specific programme or place of instruction. In early modern venice, for example, a school (or scuole) was a professional company of men, often linked to an ecclesiastical body, which engaged frequently in philanthropy and patronage, without any educational role. Elsewhere in italy these bodies would be termed companies or confraternities.