Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
The file this print is made from
Sizes
About this painting
Mark preaches in red and blue, Christ's colors: an apostle carrying Christ's mission. Behind him the basilica recalls Hagia Sophia and Venice's own San Marco, a minaret evoking Cairo beside it — so Alexandria comes to resemble the city that later took Mark's bones.
The Scuola Grande di San Marco commissioned the canvas in 1504. Gentile died in 1507 with it unfinished; his brother Giovanni completed it.
A lone Ottoman swordsman stands apart beneath the platform, among Mamluk crowds: rival, not bystander. Nevine Rateb reads him as the hostile Ottomans; in 1517 they took Egypt, and the Mamluks were gone.
Sources: the red and blue robes echoing Christ's colour coding, making Mark's authority an extension of Christ's mission · Nevine Rateb, Mamluk Studies Review 26 (2023) · inv. 160, oil on canvas, 347 x 770 cm; commissioned by the Scuola Grande di San Marco for its albergo, begun July 1504 · Brera object record and Rateb 2023; the sketchbook condition is reported in the Bellini literature and is not a document this store has read
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 10,579 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.