Carpaccio, Vittore (ca. 1460–1525)

The painter Vittore Carpaccio was born into a humble family of seafarers and fishermen and lived his entire life in Venice, Italy. He was a student of Lazzaro Bastiani and also studied under Gentile Bellini, although Bellini outshone him in prestige and commissions from the city's rulers and nobility. In 1501 the Doge of Venice commissioned paintings from Carpaccio for the Doge's Palace, where the painter's Lion of St. Mark can still be viewed. Carpaccio painted for religious schools and confraternities of Venice and is best known for The Legend of St. Ursula, a series of nine paintings completed about 1490 for Saint Ursula, a Venetian fraternity of merchants. His most famous paintings are large panoramic works, carefully drawn to glorify the city and its history, and without the intensity of religious and personal feeling that became fashionable among later Venetian painters. He depicted the lives of the saints in painting cycles of Life of the Virgin, Life of St. Stephen, Life of St. George, and Life of St. Jerome. His other famous works include Ten Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat, St. Sebastian, and The Holy Pilgrim. He set his paintings in the streets and homes of the town where he lived, and in this way his works provide a realistic look at the Venice of the Renaissance.

Carpaccio, Vittore (1460–1525) Venetian painter. His narrative paintings relate incidents against a background of an idealized Venice. His cycle of scenes from the legend of St Ursula has an exceptional vitality. Carpaccio's range of subjects varied from religious paintings, such as The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, to the enchanting Two Venetian Ladies.