Ambassadors Return to the English Court

Read this one as several moments held in a single frame. Carpaccio signed and dated it in 1498, and rather than freeze a single instant he lets the story travel across the canvas, an older Venetian way of telling a tale. The English ambassadors have come home and deliver Ursula's answer to their king. Steps, a colonnade and a stretch of open water separate one episode from the next, so the eye walks from group to group. On the far side her betrothed, the prince Etherius, decides to leave his father's court and join Ursula on the long pilgrimage to Rome.