Tintoretto’s “St. Mark Saving a Saracen” at the Accademia Galleries in Venice

Tintoretto (1518 – 31 May 1594) – “St. Mark Rescuing a Saracen from a Shipwreck”

Painting – Oil on canvas (396 x 334 cm) 1562–1566

Tintoretto, Saint Mark Rescuing a Saracen from a Shipwreck, at the Accademia Galleries in Venice, Italy

St. Mark Saracen This painting was originally housed at the Scuola Grande di Saint Mark, opposite the Campo di San Giovanni e Paolo, in the Castello district of Venice.

In 1807 it was transferred to the Doge's Palace, and in 1815, following the closure of the Scuola by Napoleon Bonaparte, who converted it into a hospital.

The painting was then moved to the other side of the Piazzetta Saint Mark to be exhibited at the Marciana Library, where it remained until the Austrians took possession of it in 1866, during their occupation of Venice, and exhibited it at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where it remained for only two years before returning to the Marciana Library until 1919.

It was finally exhibited at the Accademia Museum in 1920.

St. Mark Saracen A painting that has travelled as widely as its subject, which also sparked fierce controversy.

This painting was commissioned from Tintoretto by the Guardian Grande of the Scuola Grande di Saint Mark, Tommaso Rangone.

As was often the custom, Tintoretto depicted the aforementioned Tommaso Rangone in his painting.

He is the sailor with long hair and a white beard who wears the large golden-yellow cloak of the Knights of St. Mark and points a finger at the Saracen, whilst his other hand is plunged into the water in an attempt to rescue another shipwrecked man.

St. Mark Saracen The presence of the Grand Guardian of the Scuola in Tintoretto’s painting aroused jealousy amongst the other members of the Scuola.

The controversy was so intense that ten years later, in 1573, this painting, along with the one depicting the “Translation of the Body of St. Mark”—painted at the same time and also for the Scuola, in which Tommaso Rangone is depicted carrying the body of St. Mark—were returned to Tintoretto with a request that he remove the figure of the Grand Guardian of the Scuola from the paintings.

But Tintoretto did nothing of the sort and the two paintings remained as they were originally.

Tintoretto had undoubtedly taken a dim view of this request.

It should be noted that the Gran Guardiano, who was also a doctor, had paid Tintoretto in full out of his own pocket to paint these works.

St. Mark Saracen Returning to the painting itself, St. Mark, who is seen descending from heaven, saves a Saracen—who had converted to Christianity—from drowning during a shipwreck near Alexandria in Egypt.

You’d better be a Christian if you want St. Mark to save you!

The sea is raging with enormous waves which have already engulfed one ship, of which only the mast and sail can be seen in the background, and another is sinking on the left, from which the Saracen is no doubt coming.

The sailor at the bow of the skiff is even falling into the water with his oar, such is the ferocity of the sea.

The sailors’ panic and their helplessness in the face of the raging elements are particularly well depicted.

The figures are positioned along a diagonal running from the sailor—who is shown bare-chested and clinging to the skiff in the bottom left-hand corner—to St. Mark, backlit by divine light, at the top right.

St. Mark Saracen