The exhibition Venice and the Ottoman Empire explores the relationship between two interconnected empires over four centuries: the Republic of Venice and Ottoman Empire (circa 1400–1800). The first was a city-state that dominated commerce in the eastern Mediterranean for centuries, the second a transcontinental empire extending from eastern Europe to Africa and western Asia. Through 190 works representing diverse media, Venice and the Ottoman Empire documents interactions between the two rival states across multiple cultural arenas—political, diplomatic, economic, artistic, technological, and culinary.
More than half of the exhibition works come from the vast collections of Venice’s civic museums (Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia). Selections include paintings by Vittore Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini as well as an array of Venetian and Ottoman textiles, clothing, ceramics, metalwork, glassware, armor, nautical maps, and early printed books. Related works from the NCMA and other local collections broaden the visual and material representation of the periods and cultures under examination.
The Venetian loans are joined by a trove of objects salvaged from a major Adriatic shipwreck—the large Venetian merchant ship Gagliana Grossa that sank en route from Venice to Istanbul in 1583. These spectacular items, destined for trade in the Ottoman world, have never been exhibited outside Croatia, the country that houses the wreck.
The assembled objects transport viewers to the capital cities of Venice and Istanbul as well as the seas in between. Initial sections focus on diplomacy and trade; merchants and sailors between Venice and Istanbul; and dining and diplomacy. The latter includes a video of local chef Cheetie Kumar making recipes with rose water and saffron, ingredients used in Ottoman and Venetian cooking. The exhibition continues with a section examining the Ottoman influence on Venetian décor and dress, followed by installations of luxury Ottoman and Venetian textiles. A room dedicated to the Ottoman revival in 20th-century Venice, featuring patterned silks designed by Mariano Fortuny (1871–1949), concludes the presentation.
This exhibition is organized by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and The Museum Box. The guest curator is Stefano Carboni, a leading authority on the reception of Ottoman art and material culture in Venice and formerly CEO of the Museums Commission of the Ministry of Culture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (2019–23); director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Western Australia (2008–19); and curator and administrator in the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1992–2008).
Venice and the Ottoman Empire is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with essays by 11 scholars that offer new perspectives on the intermingling of Venetian and Ottoman cultures, available in the Exhibition Store.