Art e Dossier

In nineteenth century literature the women portrayed in this painting were described as bewitching, and in the past it had been assumed that they were two unknown Venetian courtesans. But the room setting and especially the vase on the left with the coat of arms of the noble Torella family of Venice would seem to demand another interpretation. It is likely that the two women were ladies of the Torella family. The elegant clothing and pearls would confirm this, while the objects and animals also fit into the context of symbolic allusions to chastity (white handkerchief, doves and pearls), virtues that were traditionally recognized as requisites of married women. Perhaps they were portrayed awaiting the return of their husbands. A painting fragment with vessels on the lagoon (in the J.P. Getty Museum in Malibu) has been recognized as a part of this work and could provide a plausible explanation of the scene: two ladies waiting for their husbands to return from a hunting trip on the lagoon.

This is one of the episodes in the St. Ursula cycle, a series of nine canvases with scenes from the life of the princess-saint Carpaccio painted for the Scuola di Sant’Orsola, a confraternity of nobles. The story of St. Ursula is told by Jacopo da Varagine in the Golden Legend. The princess, daughter of the king of Brittany had been betrothed to the son of the king of England, but as the wedding approached she begged her father to postpone it for three years so that she could make a pilgrimage to Rome with her fiancé who would be baptized there. Her request was granted and Ursula went to Rome where she was received by the pope. During her stay she had a dream: an angel appeared and told her that she would die during her return journey. In fact, when Ursula reached Cologne she was killed by the Huns along with her traveling companions and fiancé. In this signed canvas we see the ceremonial scene in which an imaginary pope receives Ursula and her fiancé against the real background of Castel Sant’Angelo. It is said that the courtier dressed in elegant purple is a portrait of the humanist Ermolao Barbaro who wrote an etiquette manual for the perfect ambassador.

This is one of the paintings from the Relics of the Cross that Carpaccio did for the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista. The cycle was coordinated and done to large extent by the artist who may have been his teacher, Gentile Bellini. The episode concerns the miraculous healing of a possessed man in 1494 by the Patriarch Grado using a relic of the cross that had been conserved in the Scuola since 1369. The event takes place near the Rialto on the top floor of the patriarch’s palazzo. In the loggia, along with the patriarch we see the members of the confraternity of the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista and below some members of the Calza confraternity in a life scene of city life.

This is one of the nine paintings in the St. Ursula cycle that Carpaccio did with scenes from the life of the princess-saint Carpaccio for the Scuola di Sant’Orsola, a confraternity of nobles. The story of St. Ursula is told by Jacopo da Varagine in the Golden Legend. . The princess, daughter of the king of Brittany, had been betrothed to the son of the king of England, but as the wedding approached she begged her father to postpone it for three years so that she could make a pilgrimage to Rome with her fiancé who would be baptized there. Her request was granted and Ursula went to Rome where she was received by the pope. During her stay she had a dream: an angel appeared and told her that she would die during her return journey. In fact, when Ursula reached Cologne she was killed by the Huns as were her traveling companions and fiancé. In this episode the English ambassadors are taking leave of King Mauro and receive a message for their sovereign concerning the conditions that Princess Ursula set for the wedding. An acute and observant painter, Carpaccio portrays the Englishmen accentuating their character through the costumes and large, elaborate hats.

The person has not been identified, but the painting tells the story of an unknown hero constructed through symbols and signs rather than facts. The heron struck down by the falcon seems to allude to the death of the hero, perhaps in battle since his pose resembles a hero’s statue on a funerary monument. The knight with the lance is probably the subject of the portrait engaged in his former activity. The white ermine, and the wording on the scroll, “I would rather die than be blemished” expresses the character’s virtues while the plants and animals would seem to make a further allusion to the virtuous knight’s sad story.

This is one of the two canvases Carpaccio painted for the Scuola dalamata dei Santi Giorgio e Trifone. It was probably financed by Paolo Valaresso who, in 1502, gave the “scuola” relics of the saint he had received from the patriarch of Jerusalem. The story is based on Jacopo da Varagine’s Golden Legend and two scenes are shown here. In the first, St. George on his horse hits the dragon with his lance without killing it. On the battlefield we can see the signs of the devastation wreaked by the dragon: skulls, bones and the bodies of two youths partially devoured by the beast. George is the emblem of Christian virtue and he must slay the dragon, the symbol of mortal lust. In his role as miles christianus, knight of the spirit we can recognize Paolo Valaresso who as a Christian solider had to accept the surrender of the inhabitants of the Morea fortress to the Turks. So, it is probable that in Carpaccio’s day the dragon of St. George could be a symbol of the devastating fury of the Turks.

Carpaccio painted the central nucleus of the cycle for the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavone between 1501 and 1503. In addition to the two canvases with scenes portraying St. George, there were three with episodes from the life of St. Jerome. One of the two depicts the saint’s funeral, while the other shows the wounded lion that St. Jerome took into the monastery and cared for – a metaphor of the pacification following the war against the Turks. The figures in eastern clothes in the monastery could symbolize the conversion of the Turks. The Venetian victory at Santa Maura had ended the Turkish wars for the time.

According to a legend recounted by Gerolamo (published in Venice in 1485), while Augustine was writing he was struck by a sudden flash of light and heard a voice foretelling his death and ascent to heaven. Here Carpaccio portrays the saint in an ecclesiastical-humanistic study. The face had erroneously been identified as a portrait of Cardinal Bessarione, but modern critics believe that it is the Bishop Leonino, the Apostolic Legate in Venice who was the protagonist in the negotiations between the papacy and the Republic to organize the expedition against the Turks that ended with a victory in 1502. Leonino was in Venice during the period that Carpaccio was working on the painting.

Along with the Passion of Christ between St. Jerome and Job, the Preparation of the Tomb is a meditation on the sacrifice of Christ. The two paintings may have been commissioned in the context of the Scuola di San Giobbe in Venice, since Job is present in both. Christ lies on the altar of the new law while Joseph of Arimathea and his companions make preparations for the burial. The ruins all around symbolize the end of the old law, and on the right the traditional characters of the Lamentation. The key to painting, however, is Job. He is leaning against a tree that is half dry and half flourishing, in a reaffirmation of the continuity of death and resurrection, and a reconciliation of the old world and the new.

In this signed and dated painting the donors are equated with the Holy Family by position and role, they are lavishly dressed and focused on the beatific vision. The presence of donors is an innovation in the context, while the procession of the magi, against the imaginary background, as they arrive from the East seems to create a parallel between the characters in the holy scene and the secular observers. The portraits in Carpaccio’s paintings that are inserted with a certain degree of nonchalance, do not celebrate the person, but rather the mentality of the family, the group and the institution.

This episode from the scenes of the life of St. Stephen shows the central moment of a cycle of four paintings Carpaccio did for the Scuola di Santo Stefano, a religious association to which many artisans belonged. Here St. Stephen a protomartyr of the Christian Church, dressed in priestly robes, stands on the base of a statue that is about to crumble. The figures listening to the sermon can be identified in the symbols of the nation, estate and craft and the attitude to the sermon. They are apparently taken from the local milieu, but actually they are all symbolic. At the back we can recognize the city of Jerusalem. The story of Stephen and his iconography may contain a strong anti-Jewish component. The period in which Carpaccio painted the Scenes from the Life of St. Stephen was marked by intense anti-Jewish feeling that was heightened by Franciscan preachings.

This is one of the four episodes from the Scenes of the life of St. Stephen that Carpaccio painted for the Scuola di Santo Stefano, a religious confraternity to which many artisans belonged. The disputation takes place in a setting that with its elegant monuments and buildings qualifies the skill and expertise of the patrons, the great Lombard sculptors and architects in Venice who were the leaders of the Scuola di Santo Stefano. They are the gentlemen in black beneath the loggia. Wearing red, on the sides of the colonnade are Vittore Carpaccio and Giovanni Bellini. This painting was probably meant to be interpreted in an anti-Jewish key since St. Stephen, the protomartyr of the Christian Church represents the power of the Christian word that humiliates the “useless” books of ancient Jewish wisdom.