LAUSR

Over the past few decades increasing attention has been devoted to the artistic and cultural exchanges that stemmed from the diplomatic and mercantile interactions between the Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East. In the field of art history, scholars specializing in cross-cultural studies of the Italian Renaissance (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) investigate translocated objects through their transit into the new contexts, considering that, when an object travels from one cultural context into another, it undergoes a process of appropriation in order to reconcile to its new environment, both visually and conceptually (Contadini and Norton 2013). This short essay, however, challenges an emphasis on an “original” identity for understanding these traveling objects and instead pays close attention to the malleability of meaning that depends not only on an object’s itinerary but also on the temporal context of its interpretation. As a way of example I examine the multilayered interpretations of a translocated object, a carpet from the Islamic Middle East, as it is found in a Venetian quattrocento (fifteenthcentury) painting. I argue that the itinerary of a traveling object adds further facets to the multilateral interpretations of the object without distorting its life-history. When the groundbreaking Florentine artist Giotto (1267–1337), frescoed the Arena Chapel in Padua in 1304, he brought to life a biblical narration mentioned in the four Gospels in Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Figure 1). In this scene the faithful believers, who came to welcome Christ at the Golden Gate, are shown taking off their garments, their only possession at the time, as offerings and devotedly laying them under the feet of Christ as a sign of pure respect. In later paintings of the same theme, as the one discussed in the following paragraphs, these humble offerings were supplanted by more luxurious material like oriental carpets, as one of the most expensive possessions of a Renaissance patron at the time, piously laid down under the feet of the holy figures. One of the best examples that provides evidence of this evolving tradition is Gentile Bellini’s The Virgin and Child Enthroned, depicted in the last quarter of the fifteenth century (Mack 2002, 83) (Figure 2). In this oil on wood painting, the Virgin Mary is enthroned on an oriental carpet with red background and a niche motif at the center, of which the viewer only sees the upper section. Gentile masterfully represented the intricate motifs repeated on the edge of the carpet and the two corners on both sides of the pointed niche. Gentile’s enthroned Virgin and Christ painting is a testament to the re-evaluation of an exotic object in its new setting. Here, a biblical context absorbs the lofty status of the Middle Eastern carpet, which is depicted under the celestial throne of the Virgin and Christ Child as a meritorious earthly product that comes in direct contact with the holiest figures of Christianity. The Anatolian origin of the carpet is attested by the number of similar carpets present in Venetian households at this period. Furthermore, the pointed niche design is evidence of Anatolian characteristics, rather than more curvilinear Persian examples. However, the carpet in this depiction is neither meant to emphasize its exotic origin nor its monetary value. Instead, it represents one of the most laboriously handmade artifacts at the time, and yet it is modestly dedicated to the sublime status of the divine figure. The historical and political conditions under which this painting is created help explain the mobilization of this type of object. On the one hand, the Republic of Venice at the time was a wealthy city as a result of its sociopolitical and trading relations with the Eastern Mediterranean, specifically the Ottoman Empire and the Persians (Howard 2000, 18–36). It is through its exposure to the arts and cultures of their Muslim partners that the Venetians adopted and integrated diverse exotic objects, both mundane and luxury items, including carpets, textiles, and metal ware. Hence, the transported goods and their decorative designs gradually amalgamated with the distinctive visual culture of the fifteenthand sixteenth-century Venetian. Additionally, Gentile spent almost two years, from 1479 to 1481, at the court of Mehmet II (d. 1481) in Constantinople, on the sultan’s request, where he became acquainted with the artistic values and culture of his Muslim hosts. As a consequence of these interactions, objects and art forms produced in the Middle East, such as silk Material Religion volume 15, issue 2, pp. 246–249 DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2019.1590010