Читать книгу Art in Theory - Группа авторов - Страница 24

Sanudo, a member of the Venetian elite, recounts an invitation from the sultan to the wedding of his son, and a request for an artist. The Venetian Senate responded with a diplomatic mission and the loan of the leading Venetian artist of the day, Gentile Bellini. During his stay in Istanbul, Bellini made a portrait medal of the sultan and a portrait in oil paint, now in the National Gallery, London. The translation here is from Patricia Fortini Brown, Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988, p. 54.

On the first day of August a Jewish orator from the Lord Turk arrived with letters. He wished for the Signoria to send him a good painter, and invited the Doge to go to honor the marriage of his son. [The Signoria] responded, thanking him, and sent Gentile Bellini, an excellent painter, who went with the galleys of Romania; and the Signoria paid his expenses, and he left the third of September.