| The dissertation examines the way Venetian painters represented Alexandria in the Silk Weavers' Guild and Scuola Grande di San Marco life of St. Mark painting cycles commissioned from 1496 until 1534. These images such as Gentile Bellini's St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria reveal larger patterns and attitudes about Venetian identity during a critical time period of transition. In this shifting political and economic kaleidoscope, the image of Alexandria served as an anchor when the Republic's place with respect to the Mediterranean and mainland Italy proved the most fragile. My work examines the related iconography of Mark and Egypt in Venice from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries and therefore places the image of Alexandria in its visual, as well as historical context, to recognize its function as an old, though changing symbol of Venetian identity. The dissertation analyzes the Renaissance images in light of old and new image production, including mosaics and contemporary architecture in Venice. |
