Saint Mark heals Anianus

Venice built its whole identity on Saint Mark, whose body its merchants had carried home from Egypt centuries before, so it fits that this scene sends the viewer back to Alexandria. Mark, newly arrived and still a stranger there, has torn his shoe and brought it to a local cobbler named Anianus. While mending it the man drives his awl through his own hand and cries out in pain. Mark takes the wounded hand and heals it, and Anianus, converted on the spot, will go on to be baptised, become the first bishop of the city, and end as the patron saint of shoemakers. Mansueti stages all this under a fantastic, many-arched architecture meant to read as the exotic East, its façades crusted with coloured marble and lettering. He painted it for the Scuola Grande di San Marco, the confraternity that carried the evangelist's own name.