Describing Narrative in Gentile Bellini’s Procession in Piazza San Marco

Gentile Bellini’s Procession in Piazza San Marco , painted in 1496 for the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista in Venice, was one of a series of canvases produced for the Scuola to commemorate the miraculous workings of its relic of the True Cross. Although the Cross was the protagonist of these events, Bellini’s composition elides the relic that here performs an act of healing. Instead, a meticulously rendered view of the basilica of San Marco dominates the visual field. Noting how setting here takes centre stage, this article shifts attention away from tales of miraculous intervention to explore the possibility of a distinct and visually ordered narrative. Indeed, the rich detailing of Bellini’s work presents a story bound in materiality: San Marco, as a Byzantinizing structure studded with eastern booty and built to house the appropriated bones of St Mark, emblemizes Venetian claims over Levantine goods, a discourse in which the relic of the True Cross was also a vibrant participant. The descriptive surface of Bellini’s painting reveals the connections between these various objects, setting forth an ideologically charged narrative of Venetian authority that is lodged not in pre‐existing miracle tales but in the pictorial intricacies of the canvas itself.