{"title":"Rehabilitating Reputation in Early Modern Venice: Pietro Zen as Repainter of History in Mamluk Damascus","authors":"Caroline Koncz","doi":"10.1163/23526963-04902003","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Until the sultanate’s fall from power in 1517, the Republic of Venice spent several lucrative centuries trading with the Mamluks of present-day Egypt and Syria. Even in their final years of partnership, Venice’s close contact with the Mamluks continued, as visually described in <em>The Reception of the Venetian Ambassadors in Damascus</em> (1511). In the composition, the anonymous Venetian painter depicts a diplomatic meeting of these two parties. This article proposes that the contested patron of the work, Pietro Zen, had a specific agenda in commissioning the painting. As the consul in the composition, Zen had the <em>Reception</em> created to erase his past errors as ambassador to Damascus. By repainting history, Zen hoped to restore his reputation as a skillful Venetian diplomat as well as render for posterity his family’s legacy of working in the Levant.</p>","PeriodicalId":55910,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Renaissance Culture","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Explorations in Renaissance Culture","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/23526963-04902003","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Until the sultanate’s fall from power in 1517, the Republic of Venice spent several lucrative centuries trading with the Mamluks of present-day Egypt and Syria. Even in their final years of partnership, Venice’s close contact with the Mamluks continued, as visually described in The Reception of the Venetian Ambassadors in Damascus (1511). In the composition, the anonymous Venetian painter depicts a diplomatic meeting of these two parties. This article proposes that the contested patron of the work, Pietro Zen, had a specific agenda in commissioning the painting. As the consul in the composition, Zen had the Reception created to erase his past errors as ambassador to Damascus. By repainting history, Zen hoped to restore his reputation as a skillful Venetian diplomat as well as render for posterity his family’s legacy of working in the Levant.