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Legend of St Ursula
Carpaccio's series in the Accademia
The wild story behind Vittore Carpaccio’s paintings (1497-98) in the Gallerie della Accademia is that of Ursula, daughter of King Maurus of Brittany, as it appears in Jacopo da Varagine's Golden Legend. Commissioned by the Loredans, the great patrons of the Scuola di Sant' Orsola, Carpaccio had considerable scope in interpreting the events, distant in both place and time, and went about it with his customary verve for the narrative and the literal, though naturally most of the details are from the Venice of his day.
In the first scene, The Arrival of the English Ambassadors, the ambassadors are asking for the hand of Ursula for Hereus (Erero), son of the pagan English King Conon; its very Venetian background contains a centrally planned octagonal Renaissance temple.
To the right we see Princess Ursula dictating the conditions of marriage to her father; marry she will, but on the condition that she be allowed three years to make a pilgrimage to Rome, and that Hereus convert to Christianity.
Image by PD Art