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Seated Scribe |
Mehmed II |
December 14, 2005 through March 26, 2006
Venice as we know it is inconceivable without the “East” – the myriad of cultures which bordered on the eastern Mediterranean Sea and provided gateways to Asia and Africa beyond. This exhibition focuses on just one episode in this millennium-long exchange: Gentile Bellini’s response to the east in the late fifteenth century. In his lifetime, Gentile was Venice’s most prestigious painter and in 1479 he was sent by the Venetian Senate to work for Sultan Mehmed II in Constantinople. But Gentile also responded to other aspects of the east, including the Byzantine Greek Empire as well as Venice’s other trading partners in North Africa and the Levant.
The second half of the fifteenth century, the time frame of this exhibition, witnessed a decisive power shift in the Mediterranean basin. 1453 saw the fall of Constantinople (later to be known as Istanbul), capital of the once mighty Byzantine Empire, to the Ottoman army led by Mehmed the Conqueror. Successive Ottoman military campaigns threatened Europe, particularly the Italian states and their domains, and by 1500 much of the Balkan peninsula and many of the former Greek islands were in Turkish hands. Their only serious military and territorial challenger was Venice.
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