The Sultan Djem no doubt had a suite which included women, and
Pintoricchio would have had no difficulty in finding models. We can
hardly doubt, apart from tradition, that the painter _did_ intend the
very prominent Greek in his fresco to represent Paleologos, who would so
obviously balance the other distinguished refugee at the opposite
corner; but if so, why copy an old drawing of thirteen years earlier,
when it was essential to secure a portrait, and when Paleologos himself
was always about the court? The same remark holds good of the drawing of
the Turks. With so many Turks in Rome in 1493, and all the town wild
about them, is it probable that Pintoricchio should have had recourse
for them to old drawings by Bellini? On the other hand, the style of the
drawings has no resemblance whatever to that of Pintoricchio, though I
cannot see much more to Gentile Bellini. I am inclined to think that the
attribution to this last is an arbitrary one, and arises from his having
been known to have visited the East, but that the drawings were supplied
to Pintoricchio by a third person unknown, probably one of his
assistants, whom he commissioned to procure sketches.
[Illustration:
_Anderson photo_] [_Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome_
GROUP OF HEADS
(A detail from the "Dispute of St. Catherine")]
The figure on the Emperor's left, in Turkish dress, has usually been
taken for Prince Djem, the younger son of the Sultan Mahommed II., but
as it is on record that Djem closely resembled his father, and as we
have an excellent likeness of the latter in Gentile Bellini's famous
portrait (now in Lady Layard's possession), we are able to identify Djem
in the much more striking personage, the fierce and stately prince on
horseback on the extreme right. It was as a hostage that Innocent VIII.
brought him to Rome in 1489. We have plenty of evidence of how "el Gran
Turco" struck the fancy of the Romans. All the Chronicles of the time,
the letters and diaries of Ambassadors, are full of descriptions of his
dress and person, and of the gay hunting parties which the Pope used to
give in his honour. Mantegna has left a graphic description of his
appearance in a letter written from Rome in 1485, in which he speaks of
his fierce aspect, his wonderful seat on a horse, and his turban made of
"thirty thousand ells of fine linen."
We can guess that the Turks made a great impression on Pintoricchio, for
he brings them in again to his frescoes fifteen years later at Siena.
The Emperor has been said to be a portrait of Cæsar Borgia; but as he
was only eighteen or nineteen at the time, this seems impossible. The
young man on horseback on the right, tradition names as Giovanni Sforza,
who was about twenty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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