Gentile Bellini (attr.), Portrait of Sultan Mehmet II (1480). National Gallery, London.

Ottoman Turks often appear in Venetian painting between the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the defeat of the Turkish navy by the Holy League at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The relationship between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire is typically understood through commercial trade, naval battles and religious differences. This paper examines the representation of Ottoman Turks in Venetian painting, including portraiture, identifying a trend of increasingly negative representations, and discussing the extent to which pictorial changes reflected political and commercial changes in the Mediterranean.

Venue: Dulcie Hollyock Room, Ground Floor, Baillieu Library (Building 177), University of Melbourne, Parkville (map).

Date: Monday 11 August, 6:30pm.