6/27/2023 0 Comments Orhan pamuk snowTrade set the Venetians apart, made wily diplomats of them, at a time when the rest of Italy was under the rigid sway of Catholic Spain and Papal fatwas banned dealings with the Infidel. It stressed the Italian republic’s key position as a bridge between Muslim and Christian worlds. Beginning with the Egyptian Mamalukes and moving on to the Ottomans, the exhibition surveyed the important two-way commerce in spices, glass, ceramics, and silk between Venice and the Middle East. This winter, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris placed that portrait at the centre of its exhibition “Venise et l’Orient” (1). So too was the fascination: the beginning of a tempestuous Turkish love affair with European culture. Such realism was a landmark: the first-ever true likeness of a Muslim monarch. His fine greyhound nose almost sniffs the air. Or did he? In the Venetian’s portrait, Mehmet’s young dreamy face stares wistfully out from his fluffy fur collar. Gentile Bellini went, painted, and conquered. In 1479, when the Not So Serene Republic of Venice was negotiating with the victorious Ottomans to retrieve lost trade routes, Sultan Mehmet II, fascinated by the Western fashion for portraiture, requested “a good artist.” The Doge sent his best.
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