Lia A.Chechik
(Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia)


‘Friend-or-foe’ in the ‘Diplomatic’ Painting of the Renaissance Venice.


In the history of culture the unique image of Venice was emerging during a thousand years. It was forming in parallel with the “myth of Venice”, a critical component of which was the main idea of Venice as a bridge between East and West. If we recall that the Republic was European, and originally Christian state, then the archetypal opposition of ‘friend-or-foe’ will be clearly revealed. The article defines the features of Venetian artists rendering images of the Muslim world in secular painting of the Renaissance. The object of this analysis are the painting of an unknown Venetian painter of the early 16th century, “The arrival of Venetian Ambassadors in Damascus”, and Gabriel Caliari’s 1603 painting of “Doge Marino Grimani receives the Persian Embassy”.