Treacherous Taxonomy: Art in Venetian Crete around 1500 and the “Cretan Renaissance”

Abstract

Two case studies—the architecture of the church of St. Francis in Rethymnon and the carved frame of the Madre della Consolazione painted panel in the Benaki Museum—provide a closer look at the art of Venetian Crete about 1500. The adoption and adaptation of non-Venetian models by Cretan masons and wood-carvers, as exemplified in these instances, indicate multiple artistic contacts with northern Europe, challenging the traditional binary Venice–Crete / metropolis–colony paradigm. Along with the attested perseverance of local Gothic traditions, it undermines the island's claim to its own version of the Italian Renaissance, the so-called Cretan Renaissance.