| Procession in St. Mark's Square | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Gentile Bellini |
| Year | c. 1496 |
| Medium | Tempera on canvas |
| Dimensions | 347 cm× 770 cm(137 in× 300 in) |
| Location | Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |
The Procession in St. Mark's Square (Italian: Processione in piazza San Marco) is a tempera-on-canvas painting by Italian Renaissance artist Gentile Bellini, dating from c. 1496. It is housed in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.
The painting was commissioned for the Grand Hall of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, the seat of the eponymous brotherhood in Venice. The commission included a total of nine large canvasses, by prominent artists of the time such as Bellini, Perugino, Vittore Carpaccio, Giovanni Mansueti, Lazzaro Bastiani, and Benedetto Rusconi.
The subject of the paintings were to be the miracles of a fragment of the True Cross. The item had been donated to the brotherhood by Philippe de Mézières, chancellor of the Kingdom of Cyprus and Jerusalem in 1369 and soon became the object of veneration in the city.
The canvasses were all executed in 1496–1501.
The canvas shows an event that took place about 50 years earlier, on 25 April 1444: while the members of the Scuola were processing the fragment through the Piazza San Marco (the square of St. Mark's), Jacopo de' Salis, a tradesman from Brescia, knelt before the relic in prayer that his dying son might recover. When he returned home, he discovered that the boy was completely well again.
In the foreground, Gentile has painted the confraternity in its white robes, processing at the head of the parade, the large golden reliquary suspended between them, carried beneath a canopy held by four more Scuola members. Although the subject of the picture is ostensibly the miracle itself, the Brescian merchant is hardly visible in the crowd: he kneels in sumptuous red robes, immediately to the right of the last two canopy-bearers. Rather, the subject of the picture might be more accurately described as the procession, with an especial focus on the space of St. Mark's square and on St Mark's Basilica itself, with its Byzantine domes and glittering mosaics. Regardless of the focus on the foreground of the painting, and unlike many other Venetian linear perspective composition, it lacks a clearly defined focal center. One can notice that Church di San Marco not centered on the composition and this allows the eye of the viewer to venture around the painting to observe the many events going on in the painting. [1]
Piazza San Marco, often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as la Piazza. Almost all the other urban spaces in the city are called campi ("fields"). The Piazzetta is an extension of the Piazza towards San Marco basin in its southeast corner. The two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice and are referred to together. This article relates to both of them.
Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his father, but now that familial generational relationship is questioned. An older brother, Gentile Bellini was more highly regarded than Giovanni during his lifetime, but the reverse is true today. His brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna.
Gentile Bellini was an Italian painter of the school of Venice. He came from Venice's leading family of painters, and at least in the early part of his career was more highly regarded than his younger brother Giovanni Bellini, the reverse of the case today. From 1474 he was the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice, and as well as his portraits he painted a number of very large subjects with multitudes of figures, especially for the Scuole Grandi of Venice, wealthy confraternities that were very important in Venetian patrician social life.
Vittore Carpaccio (UK: /kɑːrˈpætʃ oʊ/, US: /-ˈpɑːtʃ-/, Italian: [vitˈtoːre karˈpattʃo]; was an Italian painter of the Venetian school who studied under Gentile Bellini. Carpaccio was largely influenced by the style of the early Italian Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina, as well as Early Netherlandish painting. Although often compared to his mentor Gentile Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio's command of perspective, precise attention to architectural detail, themes of death, and use of bold color differentiated him from other Italian Renaissance artists. Many of his works display the religious themes and cross-cultural elements of art at the time; his portrayal of St. Augustine in His Study from 1502, reflects the popularity of collecting "exotic" and highly desired objects from different cultures.
The Gallerie dell'Accademia is a museum gallery of pre-19th-century art in Venice, northern Italy. It is housed in the Scuola della Carità on the south bank of the Grand Canal, within the sestiere of Dorsoduro. It was originally the gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, the art academy of Venice, from which it became independent in 1879, and for which the Ponte dell'Accademia and the Accademia boat landing station for the vaporetto water bus are named. The two institutions remained in the same building until 2004, when the art school moved to the Ospedale degli Incurabili.
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The Scuola Grande di San Marco is a building in Venice, Italy, designed by the well-known Venetian architects Pietro Lombardo, Mauro Codussi, and Bartolomeo Bon. It was originally the home to one of the Scuole Grandi of Venice, or six major confraternities, but is now the city's hospital. It faces the Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, one of the largest squares in the city.
The decade of the 1490s in art involved some significant events.
The Vendramin Family Venerating a Relic of the True Cross is a large painting by the 16th century Venetian master Titian and his workshop, executed in the early 1540s, and now in the National Gallery in London.
Lazzaro Bastiani was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, active mainly in Venice.
The Scuole Grandi were confraternity or sodality institutions in Venice, Italy. They were founded as early as the 13th century as charitable and religious organizations for the laity. These institutions had a key role in the history and development of music. The first groups of bowed instrument players named Violoni were born there in the early 16th century.
The House of Vendramin was a rich merchant family of Venice, Italy, who were among the case nuove or "new houses" who joined the patrician class when the Libro d'Oro was opened after the battle of Chioggia. Andrea Vendramin served as the sole Vendramin Doge from 1476–78, at the height of Venetian power, though in 1477 an Antonio Feleto was imprisoned, then banished, for remarking in public that the Council of the Forty-One must have been hard-pressed to elect a cheesemonger Doge. In his youth, Andrea and his brother Luca, in joint ventures, used to ship from Alexandria enough goods to fill a galley or a galley and a half, Malipiero recorded in retrospect: even his factors grew rich managing his affairs. At this period, mentions of Vendramins in various fields of business occur; Luca Vendramin (d.1527) founded a successful bank on the still-wooden Rialto Bridge with three Capelli brothers in 1507, but in his will of 1524 forbade his sons from continuing in banking. An early text on accounting mentions that the Vendramins' soap is so reliably good that you can buy it without inspecting it. Later they owned an important theatre.
The Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista is a confraternity building located in the San Polo sestiere of the Italian city of Venice. Founded in the 13th century by a group of flagellants it was later to become one of the five Scuole Grandi of Venice. These organisations provided a variety of charitable functions in the city as well as becoming patrons of the arts. The Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista is notable for housing a relic of the true cross and for the series of paintings it commissioned from a number of famous Venetian artists depicting Miracles of the Holy Cross. No longer in the school, these came into public ownership during the Napoleonic era and are now housed in the Gallerie dell'Accademia. The scuola is open to visitors on a limited number of days, detailed on the official website.
The San Giobbe Altarpiece is a c. 1487 altarpiece in oils on panel by the Venetian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini. Inspired by a plague outbreak in 1485, this sacra conversazione painting is unique in that it was designed in situ with the surrounding architecture of the church, and was one of the largest sacra conversazione paintings at the time. Although it was originally located in the Church of San Giobbe, Venice, it is now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice after having been stolen by Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Finding of the Body of Saint Mark or Discovery of the Body of Saint Mark is a painting by Tintoretto. Dated to between 1562 and 1566, it is part of a cycle of paintings of Saint Mark, the patron saint of Venice. It is now held in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.
Saint Mark's Body Brought to Venice, The Abduction of the Body of Saint Mark or Translation of the Body of Saint Mark is a painting by Tintoretto depicting the translatio, or transfer of Saint Mark's relics from Alexandria to Venice. It was produced between 1562 and 1566 as part of a series of works on Saint Mark for the Sala Capitolare of the Scuola Grande di San Marco - the others are Miracle of the Slave, Saint Mark Saving a Saracen from Shipwreck and Finding of the Body of Saint Mark. It is now held in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.
The Miracle of the Cross at the Bridge of S. Lorenzo is a tempera-on-canvas painting by Italian Renaissance artist Gentile Bellini, dating from c. 1500. It is now housed in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, in Venice.
The Miracle of the Cross at the Ponte di Rialto, also known as The Healing of the Madman, is a painting by Italian Renaissance artist Vittore Carpaccio, dating from c. 1496. It is now housed at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.
St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria is an oil painting by the Italian Renaissance artists Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, dated to 1504–1507, and held in the Pinacoteca di Brera, in Milan.
