Gentile Bellini Paints Sultan Mehmed II

In 1479, the Venetian government sent the painter Gentile Bellini to the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. The mission followed the peace that ended a long war between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire. Sultan Mehmed II had asked Venice for a skilled painter. Bellini went as a painter sent by the Venetian government, at the sultan's request.

Gentile Bellini was particularly suited for this sensitive assignment. Born into Venice's most prominent artistic family, he was the son of Jacopo Bellini, brother of Giovanni Bellini, and brother-in-law of Andrea Mantegna. Although later centuries elevated Giovanni above him, Gentile was among Venice's most esteemed painters in his own day. He had painted portraits of doges and worked on large paintings for the Great Council Hall of the Doge's Palace, and he painted vast narrative canvases crowded with figures for civic confraternities.