Paris Bordon (Treviso, 1500 – Venice, 1571), follower of, Delivery of the Ring to the Doge

Paris Bordon (Treviso, 1500 – Venice, 1571), follower of 

Delivery of the ring to the Doge

Oil on canvas, 90 x 75 cm – with frame, 106 x 91 cm

In 1534, the Scuola Grande di San Marco decided to commission "one or two canvases" for the Albergo hall and, after a public competition, entrusted the work to Paris Bordon, who created what is considered his finest work. The canvas, located between Palma il Vecchio's Storm at Sea and Mansueti's San Marco Heals Aniano, was requisitioned during the French occupation and shipped to Paris in 1797, returning to Venice after the 1815 restoration and arriving at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in 1829. The painting we see is a smaller version of that monumental canvas, executed by a Venetian painter and follower of Bordon, who faithfully reproduces its structure, theatricality, and narrative.

The scene illustrates the epilogue of the so-called Legend of the Fisherman, born from the fearful storm that struck Venice on a February night in 1341 or 1342. According to tradition, an old fisherman, unaware of their identity, ferried Saints Mark, Nicholas, and George to the Lido harbor entrance, where they calmed the storm unleashed by a demonic ship headed to submerge the city. The sign of the cross was enough to swallow the infernal vessel, with its crew of demons, by a vortex. When all was said and done, the saints revealed themselves to the astonished fisherman, and Saint Mark entrusted him with his ring, to be brought to the Doge the following morning as testimony to the miracle. The Doge recognized that jewel as the same ring kept in the Basilica's Treasury, and was thus certain that it could not have been stolen: the fisherman was believed by all.

It is precisely this moment that the canvas depicts. On the right, in a high tribune draped in rich damask, sits the Doge, wearing a golden robe and a ducal horn, surrounded by senators in their red, pink, and blue robes, who comment on the event with gestures of amazement. The old fisherman, almost naked and barefoot, timidly climbs the steps and holds out his ring to the Doge, while a figure in red, bending beside him, seems to usher him into the sovereign's presence. To the left, on the steps, the Guardian Grande of the Scuola di San Marco, wearing a precious brocade robe, kneels, flanked by a group of fellow friars who are watching the scene. In the foreground, a young man sitting on the edge of the steps gazes upward, drawing the viewer into the story.

The painting, however, is also noteworthy for its architectural setting, which in the original was a novelty for Venice. The scene takes place in a monumental loggia, opening deep into a square bustling with figures, with a palace in the background that alludes to the Doge's Palace. The only real reference is the bell tower of the Madonna dell'Orto, erected in 1503, which Bordon knew well because he lived nearby. The perspective construction, with its succession of planes, descends from the theatrical schemes described by Sebastiano Serlio in the Seven Books of Architecture, and the scale is taken directly from Book II, published in Paris in 1545: for this reason, scholars date the original to no earlier than that year. The influence of Titian and the proximity to the Tuscan Mannerists active in the lagoon, starting with Jacopo Sansovino, are also evident, as is the cool, luminous palette of a true colorist. Bordon, enthusiastically praised even by Vasari, may have been inspired by the 16th-century tapestry commissioned in 1530 by Doge Francesco Donà from the Flemish painter Jan Rost, now in the Museo Marciano. At the Gallerie dell'Accademia, the original is displayed next to Palma il Vecchio's Storm at Sea, which depicts the battle with the demonic ship and retains, on the right, an insert with the boat and three saints attributed to Bordon himself.

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