Conquest of Smyrna

In December 1577 a fire tore through the Doge's Palace and destroyed the hall of the Great Council along with its paintings. The new ceiling was planned as a sequence of the Republic's own victories, and Veronese received the great oval of Venice in triumph and two large side octagons. This is one of them. It shows Pietro Mocenigo, the fleet commander who later became doge, directing the attack on the Ottoman port of Smyrna in 1472. The timing of the commission is worth knowing. In 1573, only a few years before the fire, Venice had signed a separate peace with the Sultan and given up Cyprus. On this ceiling the Turks are on the losing side. Mocenigo stands under his banner on the right, beside a bound, half-naked prisoner, while his soldiers drag a cannon toward the walled town on the hill.