BRERA, Bellini - St. Mark Preaching

You are now in one of the largest rooms of the Brera Art Gallery, where the large canvas Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria sets the scene. A truly fascinating setting: more than 26 square meters of painted canvas, making it the largest painting of the museum, and certainly one of the most crowded and theatric.

The painting was commissioned to Gentile Bellini, one of the most important Venetian painters of the 1400s, who was specialized in this type of vast narrative scene. The work was intended for the large hall of the Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice, but was unfinished upon the artist's death in 1507. It was his brother Giovanni, who was then more than seventy years old and the official painter of the Venetian Republic, who took it up and completed it.

The scene depicts St. Mark preaching in Alexandria, Egypt; St. Mark is the patron saint and protector of Venice. Gentile Bellini had never been to Alexandria in Egypt, so he painted what he imagined it was like, which resulted in a canvas with Venetian architecture mixed with oriental elements such as towers and obelisks. It is easy to note that despite the exotic details, the square where the scene takes place is very similar to Saint Mark's Square in Venice....