Islamic artifacts and cultural currents in the art of Carpaccio

Apollo, Nov, 2003 by Mary L. Pixley

Carpaccio included a wide variety of Islamic objects in several of the religious narrative paintings he completed for Venetian scuole (confraternities) in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. They offer rare, contemporary visual testimony of the presence of such objects from the Islamic world in Venice among the luxuries with which the wealthy patricians and merchants of Venice surrounded themselves. Some of them, whether in general shape or particular detail, show clear parallels with surviving Mamluk, Ottoman, and Timurid manufactures. Others demonstrate additional cultural influences suggestive of the complex nexus of trade concerns and cultural styles in Venice at the time.

Carpaccio started introducing Islamic objects and symbols into his paintings soon after beginning the cycle of St Ursula, as seen in the Martyrdom of the Pilgrims and Funeral of St Ursula, dated 1493 (Fig. 1). A red and white banner with two horizontal series of three crowns appears above the head of the stylishly dressed son of the King of the Huns preparing to shoot Ursula in the centre of the painting. (1) The series of three crowns refers to the three kingdoms of Asia, Greece, and Trebizond, which were controlled by the Ottoman Turkish empire. (2) From the Venetian renaissance view-point, the emblem of three crowns became strongly associated with the rule of the Turkish Sultan Mehmed El (1432-81). (3) Under his leadership, the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 and threatened Venice's territorial possessions throughout the 1470s, taking control of several of Venice's colonies in the Mediterranean and invading her mainland possession of Friuli.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The bow held by the youth pointing a deadly arrow straight at Ursula's heart also makes a direct reference to the Turks through its shape and size. Unlike the European recurved bow that shows two smaller curves around the central recessed area of the hand grip, this bow has an eastern profile with a single curve bowing forward at the centre with the sides curving back and then slightly out again at the ends, and measures less than European bows. (4) Moreover, the quiver hanging down his side with its exaggerated curves recalls Turkish quivers and bow cases and the decorative ornament adorning it relates to Islamic decorative patterns. In order to reinforce the association of this holy massacre with the Turks, Carpaccio also tops the staff weapon of a soldier near the Ottoman banner with a crescent moon, an ancient symbol of the Turks. (5) On a related note, in the distance, just behind the figure stabbing the Pope, there is a man sounding a long trumpet, which is certainly of Islamic origin. The large s-curve of this trumpet, which raises the bell of the horn higher than the rest of the instrument, can be related to similar curving, long trumpets, likewise associated with battles, depicted in Persian manuscript illustrations of the early sixteenth century. In particular, many such curving horns can be found in manuscript illustrations from the Houghton Shahnameh (Book of Kings). (6)

Even though popular legends of the life of St Ursula, like that contained in the The Golden Legend, (7) believed her martyrdom took place in the fifth century and thus before the foundation of Islam in the seventh century and the rise of the Ottoman empire in the thirteenth, the inclusion of such blatantly Turkish emblems within the painting clearly links the ruthless murder of Ursula and her companions, including the Pope just behind her, with the violence and death brought by the Ottoman Turks to Italy's doorstep. While a specific association remains impossible to make, in 1480 some eight hundred Christian inhabitants of Otranto were slaughtered by Turkish troops after a bloody battle in which many inhabitants of the city died. (8) Despite the death of Mehmed II in 1481, the memory of his deadly conquests, usurpation of Venetian trading colonies, and damage to Venice's trade network in the Mediterranean would have continued after his death. And the threat of the Ottoman Turks to Venice's Levantine trade persisted after the death of Mehmed II with his successor Bayezid II (reigned 1481-1512).

Besides including Islamic symbols and weapons to create iconographical links to the Islamic world, and specifically to the Ottoman empire, Carpaccio also included Islamic objects because of their intrinsic beauty, value, and exoticism. An elegant example of such an Islamic artifact is the metal bucket hanging on the wall next to the sleeping saint in the Dream of St Ursula, dated 1495 (Fig. 2). (9) This bucket, with its pronounced round and disproportionately squat profile, bears little resemblance to Italian examples of the period. The unusual outline oF Carpaccio's brass bucket and the fortunate preservation of small Islamic buckets have led scholars to relate this bucket to pieces existing in the Museo Cotter in Venice and in the Museo Diocesano of Treviso, which date from the fourteenth century and come from Mamluk Syria or Egypt (Fig. 3). (10) However, the pot portrayed by Carpaccio is shorter, the belly is rounder, and a thin horizontal strip echoing the one circling the neck appears to serve as the foot.