Exhibition Opening

04 May 2025

PRESS RELEASE

On April 29, 2025, the Apartments of the Doges at the Palazzo Ducale in Venice hosted the highly successful opening of the exhibition “L’oro dipinto: El Greco e il dialogo ininterrotto tra Creta e Venezia”, organized by the Foundation of Venetian Museums (FMCV) in collaboration with the Byzantine and Christian Museum and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

The opening ceremony was attended by H.E. Eleni Sourani, Ambassador of Greece to Rome, His Eminence Polykarpos, Metropolitan of Italy, Professor Bruno Bernardi, Honorary Consul of Greece in Venice, Ms. Marina Kedrou, Honorary Consul of Greece in Trieste, Mr. V. Kousousas, Director of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice, Mr. D. Zafeiropoulos, President of the Greek Community of Venice, Academician Mr. Paschalis Kitromilides, among others. The exhibition was represented on behalf of the Minister of Culture, Ms. Lina Mendoni, by Ms. Olympia Vikatos, General Director of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, who conveyed the Minister’s greetings.

The exhibition “L’oro dipinto: El Greco e il dialogo ininterrotto tra Creta e Venezia” extends beyond art to explore politics, society, and commercial exchanges, spanning four centuries of artistic and cultural interaction connecting Venice with Crete. It focuses on original works produced by both well-known and lesser-known painters of the Cretan School, when the art of the Byzantine East encountered the art of the Renaissance West, a milieu in which Domenikos Theotokopoulos emerged, later internationally known as El Greco.

The Palazzo Ducale hosts a total of 150 works, mostly from the Byzantine and Christian Museum and the Dionysios Loverdos Museum. Additional contributions were provided by Saint Catherine Monastery of Sinai in Heraklion, the Historical Museum of Crete, the National Gallery of Athens, and the Onassis Foundation. Works of the Cretan School, Renaissance pieces, and works by El Greco also come from the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice, Museo Correr, the Ca Rezzonico collection, the Fondazione Giancarlo Ligabue, the Prado Museum, among others.

Starting from representative works of the Palaiologan Renaissance from the Byzantine and Christian Museum, the exhibition is organized into seven chronological sections illustrating the evolution of painting born from the artistic union of Greece and Venice. It begins in the 15th century with early Cretan masters such as Angelos Akotantos and Andreas Ritzos, who began to turn towards the Gothic West, while the influence of the Venetian Renaissance is visible in the works of some artists, such as Ioannis Permeniatis. The most prominent representatives of this artistic development were Georgios Klontzas and Michael Damaskinos, while the centerpiece is Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco), who left Crete for Venice around 1567.

A separate section is dedicated to the Venetian–Ottoman wars in the Peloponnese and the fall of Candia in 1669, which forced Cretan painters such as Theodoros Poulakis, Elias Moskos, Lambardos, Victor, and others to relocate their activities to areas under Venetian control, including the Ionian Islands, primarily Corfu and Zakynthos, or to Venice itself, like Emmanouil Tzanes.

The seventh and final section of the exhibition is devoted to the Greek Community of Venice, highlighting its distinct cultural and religious identity and the adjacent Church of Saint George of the Greeks, fully integrated into the city’s economic and urban fabric and serving as the true soul of Venice.

The exhibition concludes with the impressive digital application Imago Physis, developed in collaboration with the National Institute for Nuclear Physics – CHNet Cultural Heritage Network, which delves into the material aspects of the icons and the techniques employed in the exhibited works.

The exhibition is curated by Chiara Squarcina, Scientific Director of the Foundation of Venetian Museums, Aikaterini P. Dellaporta, General Director of the Byzantine and Christian Museum, and Andrea Bellieni, Director of Museo Correr.