Turks in the Teleri? Interpreting Earrings, Stripes, and Veils in Carpaccio’s Narrative Cycles

Abstract

The first monographic exhibition dedicated to Vittore Carpaccio (ca. 1460–1525) in the US, and the first outside of Italy, was hosted at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, from 20 Nov 2022 to 23 February 2023 (from where it went to Venice). Building on the research of art historians and experts on Venice and the larger Mediterranean region in the early modern period, this paper examines Carpaccio’s depiction of various “Turks” in some of the large narrative painting cycles (teleri) commissioned by the devotional confraternities (scuole) in Renaissance Venice. While Carpaccio’s and the larger Venetian familiarity with Islam, including Turks, has been studied, this paper compares various female figures in the St. Stephen cycle with those in his St. George cycle, situating them in the larger historical context of the commissioning scuole (Scuola di Santo Stefano and Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, respectively). While attempting to uncover the significance, if not the identities, of a few individuals who stand out from the crowd, this paper urges caution when attempting to discern social history from a painting, much as we take literary texts (particularly those written well before our own times) with a grain of salt.

1. “Turks” Viewed Through the Teleri? Research Question and Methods

Vittore Scarpazze (Carpaccio; Latinized to Carpathius or Carpatio) was born shortly after the Ottoman takeover of Constantinople (1453). Living into the third decade of the 1500s (d. ca. 1525 in Koper, modern-day Slovenia), between 1490 and 1523, he was active in Venice.1 By 1513, Carpaccio was renting a property on the Grand Canal at San Maurizio, where he lived with his wife and two sons, who would also become painters (Matino et al. 2020). His signature medium was the teleri, large panel paintings that have been likened to the graphic novels of the Renaissance (Crawford 2022; cf. Holter 2023), a number of which have been lost or scattered. His art demonstrates the influence of the Bellini brothers and was commissioned by customers in Venice and provincial locations, including Istria (modern Slovenia).

Although Venice is today part of Italy, its origins lie with the eastern Roman empire, which was centered in Constantinople (now Istanbul). It was established in the 7th century as a Byzantine duchy dependent on Ravenna. Even into the Renaissance, as a commercial center sometimes at odds with the Papacy and other European powers, Venetian loyalties were occasionally questioned. In the words of Pope Pius II (d. 1464), “With their lips they favoured a crusade against the Turks but in their hearts they condemned it” (cf. Mt 15:8; Bowd 2016).

1.1. Awareness of “Turks” and Others in Renaissance Venice

In many ways, Carpaccio’s depictions of Turks2 echo Pope Pius’ remarks. On the one hand, Turks figure as generic enemies in Carpaccio’s works: not only are the Turks represented by the dragon that St. George slays (Figure 1; Barker 2021, p. 43), they also feature—anachronistically—as those who persecute Stephen, a figure from the New Testament (Figure 2; Carboni 2007). This echoes contemporaneous depictions of the Turkish (Muslim) threat in civic and ecclesiastical realms throughout Europe3 (a threat tempered by the European victory at Lepanto in 1571, which is also widely depicted).4 To take just one literary example, a near contemporary, Martin Luther, penned On War Against the Turk within a few years of Carpaccio’s death, and two decades later wrote “Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort”, a hymn that originally began with “Lord keep us in thy Word and work, Restrain the murderous Pope and Turk.”

But, in art as in literature (see, e.g., Bisaha 2004), foreigners, including Turks and Muslims, are not always, or only, depicted as enemies. Indeed, Venice had diplomatic and commercial relations with the Ottomans—with Sultan Mehmed II even commissioning a portrait by Gentile Bellini around 1480 (see Rodini 2011). Carpaccio also lived during the Ottoman defeat of the Mamluks7 (of Turkic and Caucasian ethnic origins, they take their name from their former status as “slaves”),8 who, until 1517 and 1516, respectively, were the rulers of Egypt and Syria, with whom Venice conducted significant trade (Pixley 2003).

Reflecting this environment, Carpaccio’s Saint George cycle, executed between 1502 and 1507, in addition to the allegorical reference of the slain dragon (Figure 1 and Figure 3), also has eastern figures (Ottoman Turks or Mamluks or the Slavs themselves)9 as onlookers (Figure 3) and even being baptized (Figure 4).10 Even in some of the panels in the later Santo Stefano cycle (e.g., his Baptism, Preaching and the Dispute), Carpaccio has neutral, or friendly, Muslim figures; it is only in the final panel, Stephen’s martyrdom (1520), that Muslim figures appear exclusively as antagonists (Figure 2).11

Ironically, more than the ever-present Ottoman threat, it was arguably a conflict with a fellow Christian nation, France, that colored Venetian attitudes to other faiths and peoples. Between 1509 and 1516, Venice was embroiled in the War of the League of Cambrai. And, it was in the aftermath of their defeat (by French forces) at Agnadello (1509), that the Patriarch of Venice, Antonio Contarini, appealed to the “cuore dei semplice” (Sgarbi 2015, pp. 311–13), through a stricter piety which tended to see a variety of “false” beliefs as equally problematic—be they Protestant (D’Andrea 2005), Jewish, or Islamic. Reflecting this development, scholars have noted the seeming transition from the “eastern friends” (as in the pre-Agnadello St. George cycle) to “enemies” in the Martyrdom of the 10,000 on Mt. Ararat (ca. 1515) or the stoning of St. Stephen (1520; Sgarbi 2015, p. 312).

1.2. The Venetian Ghetto

This War of the League of Cambrai saw some displaced Jewish communities taking refuge in Venice, as had some Iberian Jews when the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian peninsula (Granada) fell to Spanish Christians (1492), with the resultant expulsion of its Jewish communities. These recent arrivals contributed to the establishment of the Ghetto towards the end of Carpaccio’s life. In fact, the Santo Stefano teleri (1511–1520), the final ones that Carpaccio would execute, have been understood as an example of changing attitudes towards Jews, reflected also in the sermons of popular preachers and culminating in the segregation of the ghetto (See esp. Rusconi 2004).

Despite contemporary connotations of the word (on which, see Schwartz 2019), its establishment has a multifaceted history and lends itself to nuanced interpretation (Segre 2025). In fact, judging by the notes of a contemporary diarist, Marin Sanudo, in which the mandate to move to the ghetto in early spring 1516 is mentioned alongside discussion of the weather and foreign affairs, its establishment seems to have been a mere news item, of no greater interest than a storm (Segre 2025, pp. 118–19). Further underscoring the anticlimactic nature of its establishment (especially if contrasted to the spectacle of the Inquisition), the Health Department was the first government body to address problems arising from the relocation of Jews to a small, impoverished area (Segre 2025, p. 119).

With the ghetto, Venice would not expel its Jews (thereby losing their financial assets to rival powers), and Jews would neither lose their belongings nor have to choose between baptism and migration (Segre 2025, p. 122; cf. Gruber 2017, pp. 74–90). Even before the establishment of the ghetto or the defeat at Agnadello, the Venetian economy had relied heavily on Jewish money lenders—and had rejected Franciscan attempts to establish Christian financial establishments (Pullan 2004). Although the violence against Jewish individuals and families certainly argues for a precarious position of Jews in Venice on the eve of the establishment of its ghetto, crimes against Jews did not go unpunished.14 And, although Franciscans were known for fiery sermons against Jews, Venetian authorities also attempted to halt some of the incendiary preaching (Hughes 1986, pp. 3–59, n. 89). Additionally, a number of the literati were interested in Hebrew and also Jewish kabalah.15 Finally, particularly relevant to our discussion, despite sartorial laws mandating distinguishing marks for Jews, their enforcement was not uniform.16

1.3. Research Question and Methods

In surveying the literature on Carpaccio and larger Renaissance Venice, I was struck by the number and variety of Venetian interactions with its Muslim neighbors and the larger Mediterranean. I found thorough discussions of Carpaccio’s draftmanship (Whistler 2018), the reception history of his works (e.g., Del Puppo 2012), the commissioning scuole, and the current locations of many of his pieces. But, although many of the individuals in Carpaccio’s works appear portrait-like in their execution, I could find very few discussions of the identities of the individuals behind the pictures.17 I did, however, find robust discussion about the degree of verisimilitude in his works (Del Puppo 2009, pp. 137–45), his skillful depiction of topographic and natural details (Marshall 1984), as well as garments and fabrics.18

One aspect of Carpaccio’s oeuvre that has been the subject of scholarly debate is the degree of historical realism present in his paintings. The works of many Renaissance artists, including Carpaccio and his contemporaries, reflect familiarity with accounts of the Holy Land and other regions (Ross 2014; Germain-De Franceschi 2010, pp. 129–49; Marshall 1984) as told by pilgrims, scholars, and merchants. Some of these depictions, albeit with architectural or chronological inaccuracies, are our only pictorial record of certain Muslims of the time.19

Bearing in mind the challenges of separating historic reality from artistic license, this paper focuses on some women (cf. Lacouture 2012) who feature in his teleri that were commissioned by two separate schools: the San Giorgio and Santo Stefano cycles. Scholars have discussed various female figures in Carpaccio’s and other Renaissance works. My own investigation grew from an initial examination of the women listening to Santo Stefano, to a closer look at other female figures in his teleri, particularly those that depict Muslims and women. Although a comprehensive investigation into the daily lives of Early Modern women, be they Jewish, Christian or Muslim, Venetian, Ottoman or Mamluk, is beyond the scope of this discussion, as is technical art historical analysis, the following “reads” Carpaccio’s teleri as one might historical texts. Through close comparison of small details, it attempts to see these women as Carpaccio and the early viewers may have. How clearly is confessional, or ethnic, identity signaled through adornment or clothing?

Despite some intentional misrepresentations (e.g., biblical villains ahistorically dressed in Ottoman garb, as in the stoning of St. Stephen; Figure 2), many details of the costumes of the individuals who appear in his teleri conform to descriptions found in contemporaneous written accounts, as well as to drawings or woodcuts of other artists of his day. For example, Carpaccio’s sketch of Two Standing Women, One in Mamluk Dress (n.d.), now at the Princeton Art Museum20 is strikingly similar to the women at the left-hand side of Saracenes in Damascus, a woodcut in von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (Figure 5; discussed in Ross 2014, p. 83; see also Ross 2007). The two figures appear at the left of the Triumph of St. George (Figure 3, detail in Figure 6), although in different positions. As discussed below, modified versions of this sketch may also appear in the Baptism of the Selenites (Figure 4, detail in Figure 7) and the Ordination of St. Stephen (1514, detail in Figure 8).

The other grouping of women discussed here is the group of five listening to Santo Stefano (Figure 9). The color scheme is arresting: three wear red pillbox hats with veils of different colors attached; one has a blue pillbox hat with a veil; and a fifth woman is all in white, with her face half-covered, showing only her nose and mouth. In contrast to her companions, her gaze is downcast, averted from the speaker, strongly invoking Late Medieval images of blindfolded, or downcast, Synagogue (although in Christian art, Synagogue often has her head bared; see, e.g., Rubin 2014). Commonly interpreted as representing the Synagogue, her garments also resemble the taqiyya-wearing (Muslim) women in contemporaneous drawings such as Bellini’s Preaching of St. Mark in Alexandria (1504–1507).

As they have been variously identified as Jewish or Muslim, the following looks at these women together with the aforementioned women in the St. Stephen and St. George cycles, paying particular attention to three details of ornamentation: earrings, stripes, and veils. It represents a modest attempt to contribute to discussions on the depictions of Muslim and other women in Renaissance Venice—ever mindful of artistic license, donors’ whims now lost to us, as well as the possible variety of sources for his works (e.g., the Golden Legend; on which, see, e.g., Reames 1985).

2. Venice and Its Schools (Scuole, Sing. Scuola)

Notably, through the domestic and international turmoil in the Early Modern period, Venice had a flourishing artistic scene and, politically and commercially, attracted the attention of foreigners and inhabitants of other parts of Italy. Jewish communities were not the only displaced persons in this period. Some of the communities that fled the Ottoman advance found refuge in Venice, sometimes preserving their memories of Ottoman aggression (and, presumably, other prejudices)26 in public art, as illustrated by the 1530 facade of the Albanese confratelli, which features Mehmet II wearing a turban and a crown and bearing a scimitar. He stands beneath the fort of Scutari, the siege of which in the 1470s led to the exodus of many Albanians to Venice (Irena 2017).

Many of the immigrant communities, as well as merchants and artisans, gathered together in devotional confraternities, or “scuole” (sing. scuola). When they were able, these scuole might commission an artist to decorate their church or gathering place (as did the Dalmations who commissioned Carpaccio’s St. George cycle). Also among the patrons of Carpaccio’s work were some of the devotional schools in Venice that drew upon various artisan groups for their membership.27 These scuole were not confined to the inhabitants of a particular zone, or to men. They could be centered around a saint, or linked by nationality, or, eventually, based on the cult of the Eucharist. And, while over 200 were recorded in the 1500s (the historian Marin Sanudo, for example, counted the flags of 210 distinct confraternities at the funeral of Cardinal Zen in 1501; e.g., Quaranta 2018, p. 80), many were disbanded under Napoleon. As many contracts between the artist and the school have not survived (e.g., C. Brooke 2004, p. 310), the rationale for particular elements in the teleri, including the identities of individuals depicted therein, remains a matter of speculation.

2.1. Scuola Degli Schiavoni

Some scuole, like the one that commissioned the St. George cycle (Figure 1, Figure 3, and Figure 4)28, were both linked by nationality and centered around a saint (or saints): the Scuola Dàlmata dei Santi Giorgio e Trifone, also called the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni (the Dalmatian School of St. George and St. Triofonus, or the School of St. George of the Slavs).29 Between 1501 and 1509, Carpaccio executed various teleri for this school (for some examples, see Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3). Although they remain in the possession of the scuola, their original placement is unknown. Additionally, no records of Carpaccio’s patrons for his San Giorgio cycles are known to survive. They were likely commissioned as part of a renovation and refurbishment project of the scuola, possibly for its Jubilee. His work for the scuola coincides with the gifting of a relic of St. George by Paolo Valaresso, a commander of Venetian fortresses that had fallen to the Turks in 1499. The relic was transferred to the scuola on 24 April 1502. This Narrative Cycle reflects Carpaccio’s methods well: in addition to the dragon, which comes from the aforementioned Golden Legend, Carpaccio includes details mirroring contemporaneous descriptions of this event, such as trumpets and pipes, colorful garments, and flags in the Triumph of St. George (Figure 2).30

Unlike the artisan guilds, which were specific to a single trade or a group of related occupations, scuole could also include members from different trades; it has been argued that this was likely the case of the scuola that commissioned the other cycle discussed here (that of St. Stephen).

2.2. Scuola di Santo Stefano

The Scuola di Santo Stefano, one of the oldest Venetian confraternities, was founded in 1298. Although sometimes termed laneri (textile workers), by Carpaccio’s day, the members likely included stone masons and stone cutters (tagliapietra e lapicidi), for whom St. Stephen is the patron saint, as, according to the biblical account (Acts 7:59), he was stoned to death. Proponents of this hypothesis point to the details of the stone work in the Santo Stefano cycle, as well as the harmony between nature and architecture, which is unparalleled in Venetian art of the early 1500s, but which evokes the highly refined Lombard classical revival style.31

This scuola was first housed in the Augustinian convent (now the home of Inland Revenue!32) in Campo di Santo Stefano, but eventually was granted its own building nearby (now a mixed commercial-residential building). It was here, on the third floor, that Carpaccio worked, until at least 1520, on the five panels of his St. Stephen cycle (I. Brooke 2024). Unlike the three parts of the St. George cycle executed between 1502 and 1507 (Figure 1, Figure 3, and Figure 4), which remain in the building, if not the exact location, of their original placement, the five paintings in the St. Stephen cycle33 were dispersed after the Napoleonic dissolution of the scuola.

As with other campi, Santo Stefano would host public theatrical displays on feast and wedding days (I. Brooke 2024, p. 22; Henry 2023, pp. 223–44). In 1515, a performance of a comedy in its refectory was attended by a large crowd, including the Doge’s son! (I. Brooke 2024, p. 22) Irene Brooke has highlighted research that hints at the involvement of the Augustinian friars themselves (perhaps most well known as the order to which the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther belonged) in these productions. On a darker note, the square of Santo Stefano had also been the scene of a brutal murder of a Jewish merchant, Aron, on 12 September 150334—a crime memorialized by the aforementioned Sanudo. Additionally, perhaps inspiring Carpaccio’s depiction of the Preaching (Figure 10), the square also served as a popular preaching podium: for example, in his Diario, the contemporary historian Marin Sanudo notes that on Christmas day in 1520, the friar Andrea da Ferrara preached to a large crowd gathered in the square, openly attacking the Pope and his court.35

The scuole as patrons of the arts, and the squares as centers of entertainment, dissent, and information reflect the vibrancy of Venetian civic life—a vibrancy that also had its critics. A late 16th century encyclopedia of professions, in fact, stigmatizes those who “spend all of their time strolling in the square, going from the taverns to the fishmongers and from the palace to the loggia, doing nothing else all day but wandering here and there, now hearing singing among the stalls...now wasting time at the barbershop telling tales, now reading the news.”36

The vibrancy of Santo Stefano as described in contemporary accounts leads to the inevitable question: would contemporary viewers have seen echoes of their own Campo in the Preaching of Santo Stefano (Figure 10)? For, as with the San Giorgio cycle commissioned for the Scuola degli Schiavoni, the Santo Stefano cycle has a particular significance for the commissioning scuola: depiction of key events of the vita of its patron saint. Both works also contain details reflecting the commissioning milieu. As noted above, the ceremonial parade in the Triumph of St George (Figure 3) reflects the parade that accompanied the translation of the relic in 1502. Such a chronological mash-up might well confuse the uninitiated viewer. (When I first saw the Preaching of St Stephen at the Louvre a decade ago, I was taken aback by the minarets towering over a New Testament figure; see Figure 10). But, as various scholars have noted, Carpaccio was a master of seemingly seamlessly intertwining a fantastic, miraculous, or historical episode with details familiar to his patrons’ quotidian routine.37

Figure 10. The Sermon of St. Stephen (1514)38.

Figure 10. The Sermon of St. Stephen (1514)38.

3. Social History in the Teleri? Parsing Social, Sectarian and Ethnic Identities Through Earrings, Stripes and Veils

Patricia Fortini Brown has noted Venetian attachment to the Chronicle, even when neighboring regions were seeing the emergence of humanist historiography. Unlike the humanist historiography, which was almost an artistic production, the Chronicle was often anonymous and, especially after 1350, filled with descriptive detail, especially of daily life, considered essential for historical authenticity (Brown 1984, pp. 263–94, esp. 277–79). She places Carpaccio’s teleri squarely in the context of this literary genre. The artist, like the chronicler, had to select the relevant information from earlier texts, update it, and add his own observations. In their attention to descriptive detail and inclusion of notes of mundane importance, both the Chronicle (like that of the aforementioned Marin Sanudo)39 and Carpaccio’s cityscapes bring to life the varied people, and activities, seen at the campi, or piazze, of Renaissance Venice.

With these observations in mind, let us examine a few of the women in Carpaccio’s teleri for indications of their social, sectarian, or ethnic identity. While their identities are (as yet) unknown, do their clothing or other adornment shed new light on the awareness of Jewish, Muslim, or other women in his milieu?

3.1. Earrings

Based on their clothing and hairstyles, the four women listening to St. Stephen’s sermon with their faces uncovered (Figure 9) are understood to be Jewish women (for example, various shades of yellow can be seen on their clothing).40 Women with similar (Levant-style?) headdresses also feature in Carpaccio’s St. George cycle (Figure 6 and Figure 7). They also appear in the Consecration of St. Stephen (Figure 8), seemingly wearing earrings, which is also considered a possible indication of Jewishness.41 By contrast, the women listening to Stephen’s Sermon all have their hair covering their ears, so any such adornment would not be visible. (A woman with a similar headdress in the Triumph of St. George, Figure 6, also has her ears covered by fabric.)

Although women in various parts of Christian Europe had worn earrings, they were gradually phased out in many areas in the 12th century; Jews, but also Slavic areas, seem to have maintained the tradition of wearing earrings. The move away from earrings was, however, short-lived—as the 16th century increasingly saw aristocratic women donning them (a trend that, like many others, did not escape the diarist Marin Sanudo) (Hughes 1986, p. 11 n. 18; 39; cf. Simons 2023)—albeit more as drop earrings than the circles that would still mark Jews and other foreigners.42 Given the variety of trends and attitudes towards such adornments in a wide range of cultural settings, earrings may not prove to be a particularly accurate sectarian or ethnic marker.

3.2. Stripes

While the red hat and the posture of the woman on the left in the details of both St. George Baptising (Figure 7) and the Consecration of St. Stephen (Figure 8, which has two additional women) are reminiscent of the left-hand figure in Carpaccio’s aforementioned sketch of Two Standing Women, the woman to the right who had been wearing a taqiyya-style headdress in Carpaccio’s sketch and in the Triumph (Figure 6) has been replaced by a woman with a striped veil. She stands in a similar pose to the woman of Carpaccio’s sketch and the Triumph of St. George, but her face is fully visible—dark-complexioned in the St. George Baptizing the Selenites (Figure 7); lighter in the Consecration of Stephen (Figure 8). Stripes, or striations, can also be seen in the woodcut in von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio (Figure 5) (Von Breydenbach 2010).

Other artists of his day incorporated striped fabrics in their works (e.g., Bellini, Giorgione, Mansueti)—with, arguably, various nuances.43 In contradistinction to Carpaccio, however, the aforementioned artists placed stripes on male, not female, subjects—at least two of which seemingly on individuals of eastern origins. (A few decades later, Titian would dress an African servant girl in stripes in Diana and Actaeon [1556–1559]). Carpaccio’s striped veils bear a marked resemblance to striped silk fabric from Mamluk Egypt (Behrens-Abouseif 2023, pp. 138–40). But, by Carpaccio’s day, striped cloth of the attabi style44 was also popular in Europe. Although originally produced in Attabiya, a quarter of Baghdad, it was also produced in al-Andalus (Rodríguez Peinado and Cabrera-Lafuente 2020) and elsewhere. Following Bethany Walker’s caution (Cited by Rodríguez Peinado and Cabrera-Lafuente 2020, p. 28), it would be difficult to discern the provenance of the fabric as European silks tried to imitate those from the east, while “weavers in China produced Islamic designs for the Mamluk market”!

An initial read is that the women with the striped veils are servants, as stripes may have negative connotations or indicate foreigners in European art.45 But, while stripes were associated with the east (sometimes also signaled by darker-complexioned figures (Stošić 2017, pp. 1033–40) or inferior social status, he dresses both a dark-skinned woman in The Baptism of the Selenites (Figure 7) in stripes,46 as well as a fair-skinned woman in the same position in the Consecration of Saint Stephen (Figure 8) in nearly identical striped shawls. That nearly identical fabric appears in teleri for two separate scuole argues against the fabric having significance for a particular scuola.

Like the black gondolier in the Miracle on the Rialto, who is dressed with the same flamboyance as the other gondoliers (Lowe 2013, pp. 412–52), do such subtle parallels in Carpaccio’s work underscore the variety—and fluidity—of race (and religion) and class present on the squares and canals of Renaissance Venice? Do the stripes signal something beyond racial otherness—possibly a class distinction?

3.3. Veils

Although veiled women are, in modern discourse, frequently associated with Islam, the veiling of women is neither exclusive to Islamic tradition nor uniformly practiced by Muslim women, past or present. In fact, while Mamluk women (exclusive of servants) were generally depicted fully covered, contemporaneous images from the Islamic east represent women generally unveiled (Rapoport 2007, p. 8). While the Mamluk style of female covering (the taqiyya) is visually striking and, as with the variety of Mamluk male headgear, caught the attention of numerous Renaissance artists (Bellini’s Preaching of St. Mark; Carpaccio’s Preaching of St. Stephen, see Figure 10; cf. also Figure 6), in Carpaccio’s day, Venetian women would also cover their hair and also their faces for various reasons. The “deserving poor” (poveri vergognosi)—frequently upstanding women who, through widowhood, had fallen on hard times—were one group of white-veiled women; a confraternity dedicated to their relief was even established in the 1500s.47 Even (young) unmarried women in Venice may have resembled their taqiyya-clad Mamluk counterparts, based on Jean Jacques Boissard’s Virgo Veneta (unmarried Venetian woman wearing a cappa, albeit slightly later than Carpaccio) (Reproduced in Burghartz 2015, p. 2, See also 31, n. 54; Cf. Jones 2009, pp. 511–44).

While taqiyya-clad women (or their retinues) were unlikely to have accompanied Muslim notables or merchants visiting the Serenissima, Mamluk merchants and scholars were known to travel with a slave girl, or to engage in temporary marriages while away from home.48 Although Mamluks reportedly prized fair-skinned Turkish concubines, servant girls could be light or dark-complexioned (Rapoport 2007, p. 14). Might the women with uncovered faces wearing distinctively striped shawls reflect Carpaccio’s awareness of the difference between Mamluk slave girls and their owners? For, unlike their owners, slave girls (except concubines) would not have had their faces uncovered.49 Could the women with the striped veils reflect an awareness of servant girls accompanying Mamluk or other foreign embassies? (In addition to its well-known ties to the Mamluks, the century beginning with the 1460s has been described as the “golden age” of Veneto-Safavid relations; cf. Rota 2009, p. 28).

Alternatively, given the diffusion of striped fabric and the mobility of populations, might the striped shawls reflect an increasing presence in the Serenissima of communities that wore such headcoverings (Slavs fleeing the Ottomans,50 or communities expelled from Spain, where Christian and Muslim women were known to wear the almalafa, a wrap that could be left hanging or drawn to cover the face)? In fact, the style of the striped shawl in Carpaccio’s teleri (a tight headband with long flowing fabric that could, if desired, be drawn around the upper body and face) is particularly reminiscent of the Andalusian almalafa- a “Moorish female clothing” (although not specified as striped, and worn by both Christian and Muslim women) seemingly prohibited by law in Granada in 1511.51 Especially as the attabi fabric was produced in al-Andalus, might the two women wearing these coverings reflect the presence of Spanish immigrants in Venice, possibly serving as domestic servants? Further research into the foreign embassies present in Venice, as well as the clothing of various people present in Venice at the time, may shed further light on the significance of the two women with striped veils.

The final adornment we discuss is a veil that partially covers the face of the central woman in the group listening to Santo Stefano (Figure 9). Instead of a traditional reading of this white-clad woman as a Synagogue, Stoichita argues for her as a representation of Islam (Stoichita 2019, pp. 40–41, 64). Indeed, the white garments that cover her head seem to have a square hat beneath the veil, resembling those of the taqiyya-clad women in the background of the telero as well as those in Bellini’s St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, as well as von Breydenbach’s Saracenes (Figure 5)52 or Carpaccio’s Two Standing Women. But, as none of these groups appear to have veiled their eyes but not their mouths, I would agree with a reading of the half-veiled woman as Synagogue, possibly reflecting the fashion seen among some of Venice’s Jewish inhabitants, especially the relatively recent Spanish community, many of whom had come as merchants, via the Levant.53

The style of concealment (covered hair and eyes, with only her mouth and nose showing), however, defies easy classification. For Islamic face coverings often allow the eyes to be seen, but cover the hair and, sometimes, also the nose and mouth (as seen in a number of the women in Bellini’s representation, whose lower faces are more fully obscured than their eyes); generally, it is Synagogue who is blindfolded in European art—but with her hair and the rest of her face visible. The closest approximations to this style of face covering seem to come from Spain, as, for example, the (albeit later) depiction of a woman in Madrid, with a sheer black half-face veil covering her eyes but revealing her nose and mouth (Bass and Wunder 2009, p. 125). Might, then, the white-clad woman with her upper face covered reflect a Spanish, but Jewish, presence in Carpaccio’s Venice? Again, further research into the contemporaneous clothing of Venice’s Jewish communities may shed light on the significance of this figure.

4. Concluding Reflections

Assuming that the characters who “make up Stephen’s motley audience” were “not all that dissimilar from the people the painter might have seen with his own eyes, around 1500, in the squares and back alleys of Venice (Stoichita 2019, p. 39),” this study has examined Carpaccio’s use of earrings, stripes and veils for possible social, ethnic and/or confessional signifiers in teleri that were commissioned by two separate scuole.

It concludes with more questions than answers. While Jewish women may well have worn earrings (or tried to hide them), the diversity of Venice’s population and the range of attitudes towards this adornment argue against earrings alone as a particularly accurate class, sectarian, or ethnic marker. It also found further research to be needed on the composition of the Mamluk (or other) diplomatic missions to Venice, as well as the clothing trends among the recent immigrant communities, to interpret the striped veil on two women, one watching St. George Baptizing the Selenites, the other attending St. Stephen’s consecration. Does this veil indicate an awareness of Mamluk class distinctions, or reflect the distinctive clothing of recent (Spanish) immigrants in Venice? Finally, further research on the specifics of Jewish (Spanish, Levantine) clothing may inform our understanding of the ethnicity of the white-clad woman with a partial face veil, who is listening to the preaching of St. Stephen.

Viewers at a chronological, cultural, and geographic remove must be particularly careful not to ascribe undue significance to aspects of the teleri that resonate with their own worldview. While Patriarch Contarini may have warned against a Jewish, Muslim, or Protestant danger, he did not restrict his admonitions for repentance to external threats. After the earthquake of 1511, he called for three days of fasting, attributing the earthquake to the sins of the Venetians!54 In addition to turbaned antagonists, St. Paul (also as Saul) appears in both of Carpaccio’s depictions of the stoning of St. Stephen. Could this reference the Christian need for repentance, in addition to Jewish/Muslim culpability?55 As Nirenberg cautioned with assigning predictive value to medieval Holy Week riots (Nirenberg 2015, p. 229), there is the danger of ascribing ahistorical significance to a work of art—or a literary text.

To conclude on a cautionary note. The inclusion of details intended to create a sense of verisimilitude could also serve to cast a realistic appearance on a fictional, or fantastic, situation—to invent a history, often for didactic or polemical purposes. Sidney Griffith has noted this tendency in Christian debate texts from the early Islamic period, in which a Christian monk is frequently portrayed in a socially realistic (and subservient) position vis-a-vis his Muslim interlocutors. Subtle allusions to difference in status, or language, emphasize both the social inequalities, as well as underscore the strength of the Christian’s faith (and intellect)—not to mention his ability to best his Muslim opponent(s)! (Griffith 2010, pp. 29–54). As with early Christian-Muslim debate texts, the social verisimilitude of Carpaccio’s oeuvre raises the question of its historicity, while encouraging reflection on the message behind the painting (Griffith 2010, p. 52). Especially given the multi-ethnic (and sectarian) makeup of Venetian society, as well as the contacts with other regions that many Venetians enjoyed—e.g., as recent immigrants, merchants, etc.—details such as clothing (veil), fabric (striped, embroidered), adornment (earrings), even how a garment is draped, may further nuance our appreciation of Carpaccio’s work, and the Venice of his day.