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
Gentile Bellini (c. 1429 – 23 February 1507) 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 Giova ...
, dating from ''c.'' 1496. It is housed in the
Gallerie dell'Accademia
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 o ...
in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
.
History
The painting was commissioned for the Grand Hall of the
Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista
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 G ...
, 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
Pietro Perugino (, ; – 1523), born Pietro Vannucci, was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Umbrian school, who developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in the High Renaissance. Raphael was his most famous pupil.
Ear ...
,
Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio (British English, UK: Help:IPA/English, /kɑːrˈpætʃ(i)oʊ/, American English, US: Help:IPA/English, /-ˈpɑːtʃ-/, Italian: Help:IPA/Italian, itˈtoːre karˈpattʃo c. 1460/66 – 1525/26) was an Italians, Italian pai ...
,
Giovanni Mansueti Giovanni may refer to:
* Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname
* Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data
* ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...
,
Lazzaro Bastiani
Lazzaro Bastiani (1429 – 5 April 1512) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, active mainly in Venice.
He was born in Padua. He is first recorded as a painter in Venice by 1460 in a payment for an altarpiece of San Samuele, for the Procura ...
, and
Benedetto Rusconi
Benedetto Rusconi, nicknamed the Diana, (ca. 1460 – 1525)
National Gallery of Art. Retrieved April 17, 2018. was an Ital ...
.
The subject of the paintings were to be the miracles of a fragment of the
True Cross
The True Cross is the cross upon which Jesus was said to have been crucified, particularly as an object of religious veneration. There are no early accounts that the apostles or early Christians preserved the physical cross themselves, althoug ...
. The item had been donated to the brotherhood by
Philippe de Mézières
Philippe de Mézières (c. 1327 – May 29, 1405), a French soldier and author, was born at the chateau of Mézières in Picardy.
Period of soldiering (1344–1358)
Philippe belonged to the poorer nobility. At first, he served under Luchino Visc ...
, chancellor of the
Kingdom of Cyprus
The Kingdom of Cyprus (french: Royaume de Chypre, la, Regnum Cypri) was a state that existed between 1192 and 1489. It was ruled by the French House of Lusignan. It comprised not only the island of Cyprus, but it also had a foothold on the Anat ...
and
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
in 1369, and soon became the object of veneration in the city.
The canvasses were all executed in 1496–1501.
Description
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
Piazza San Marco (; vec, Piasa 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'' ("the Square"). All other urban spaces in the city (exc ...
(the square of St. Mark's), Jacopo de' Salis, a tradesman from
Brescia
Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and ''comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Iseo. ...
, 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
A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divin ...
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
The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark ( it, Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco), commonly known as St Mark's Basilica ( it, Basilica di San Marco; vec, Baxéłega de San Marco), is the cathedral church of the Catholic Chu ...
itself, with its
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
domes
A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...
and glittering
mosaics
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
.
See also
*''
Miracle of the True Cross in the Canal of S. Lorenzo''
*''
Miracle of the Relic of the Cross at the Ponte di Rialto
The ''Miracle of the Cross at the Ponte di Rialto'' (Italian: ''Miracolo della Croce a 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 ...
''
Sources
*
External links
Description page at wga.hu website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Procession in St. Mark's Square
1496 paintings
Paintings by Gentile Bellini
Paintings in the Gallerie dell'Accademia
Venice in art