Procession in St. Mark's Square
A Corpus Christi procession filling the Piazza San Marco in 1496 — the earliest detailed painting of the square, its Basilica still gold-mosaiced.
Procuratie
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
Procession in St. Mark's Square — at a glance
- Artist
- Gentile Bellini (c. 1429–1507)
- Year
- 1496
- Movement
- Venetian Renaissance
- Place
- The Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy
- Viewpoint
- Before the Basilica, looking down the square — Piazza, Basilica and Campanile survive; the façade mosaics and paving have since changed
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 367 × 745 cm
- Now at
- Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
Overview
Procession in Piazza San Marco is one of the ‘Miracles of the Relic of the True Cross’ cycle painted for the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista in Venice. Gentile Bellini's contribution, dated 1496, shows the Corpus Christi procession of 1444 crossing the Piazza San Marco: a long file of white-robed confraternity brothers carrying candles and the golden reliquary under a canopy, ranks of officials and clergy, and — a small detail near the front — a merchant kneeling in prayer as the relic passes, the moment a miracle cured his son. It is oil on canvas, very large (about 367 by 745 cm), and it hangs in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.
Where was Procession in St. Mark's Square painted?
Scholarship The picture shows the Piazza San Marco from in front of the Basilica, looking down the length of the square: the full mosaic-and-marble west front of St Mark's, the base of the Campanile, the ranks of the Procuratie along the sides. It is an invaluable record because it shows the Basilica's façade before its Gothic mosaics were mostly replaced in later centuries (one original, over the Sant'Alipio door, survives and matches Bellini's picture), and the Piazza before the paving and the Procuratie Nuove were rebuilt. The square, the Basilica and the Campanile are all there and instantly recognisable, so the view can be matched — with those historical differences noted.
What is in the painting?
The gold-and-marble front of St Mark's fills the top of the canvas, its four bronze horses and its cluster of domes clear. Across the square below moves the procession: white-robed brothers in double file with tall candles, a baldachin over the reliquary, choristers, senators in red, the Doge among them. Crowds line the Procuratie arcades; the pavement is patterned; a few oriental visitors and a dog. Bright, even daylight.
Look closely
The original façade mosaics
The gold Gothic mosaics on St Mark's front match one surviving original (over the Sant'Alipio door); the rest were later replaced.
The bronze horses
The four gilt-bronze horses stand on the Basilica's terrace, clearly shown.
The kneeling merchant
A small figure near the front kneels in prayer as the reliquary passes — the moment of the miracle.
The white-robed procession
A long double file of confraternity brothers with tall candles threads the square under a canopy.
Analysis
Composition and technique
The whole west front of St Mark's as a backdrop, with the procession threading the square in a long, orderly line.
Scholarship Bellini uses one-point perspective down the square and renders every mosaic, arch and figure with documentary care — a portrait of Venetian state ceremony and of the Piazza itself. The sacred incident (the kneeling merchant) is deliberately tiny within the civic spectacle.
History & provenance
The canvas passed with the Scuola's cycle to the Venetian Accademia after the Napoleonic suppression of the confraternities and hangs there.
Sources
- Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice — collection entry for Gentile Bellini, ‘Procession in Piazza San Marco’ (1496)
- Patricia Fortini Brown, ‘Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio’ (Yale University Press, 1988)
Related paintings
Miracle of the Holy Cross at the Rialto Bridge
1494
Carpaccio's panel from the same cycle — the relic at the old wooden Rialto Bridge.
St Mark's Body Brought to Venice
1564
Tintoretto in the same square sixty years later, storm-emptied and supernatural.
The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice
1730
Canaletto's Venice, 230 years on.
More by Gentile Bellini
