such a reputation by
his pictures in the great council-chamber of Venice, that when, in 1479,
Sultan Mehemet, the conqueror of Constantinople, sent to Venice for a good
painter, the Doge sent to him Gentile Bellini. With him he sent two
assistants, and gave him honorable conduct in galleys belonging to the
State. In Constantinople Gentile was much honored, and he painted the
portraits of many remarkable people. At length it happened that when he
had finished a picture of the head of John the Baptist in a charger, and
showed it to the Sultan, that ruler said that the neck was not well
painted, and when he saw that Gentile did not agree with him he called a
slave and had his head instantly struck off, to prove to the artist what
would be the true action of the muscles under such circumstances. This act
made Gentile unwilling to remain near the Sultan, and after a year in his
service he returned home. Mehemet, at parting, gave him many gifts, and
begged him to ask for whatever would best please him. Gentile asked but
for a letter of praise to the Doge and Signoria of Venice. After his
return to Venice he worked much in company with his brother. It is said
that Titian studied with Gentile: it is certain that he was always
occupied with important commissions, and worked until the day of his
death, when he was more than eighty years old.

[Illustration: FIG. 33.--CHRIST. _By Gio. Bellini._]

But Giovanni Bellini was the greatest of his family, and must stand as the
founder of true Venetian painting. His works may be divided into two
periods, those that were done before, and those after he learned the use
of oil colors. His masterpieces, which can still be seen in the Academy
and the churches of Venice, were painted after he was sixty-five years
old. The works of Giovanni Bellini are numerous in Venice, and are also
seen in the principal galleries of Europe. He did not paint a great
variety of subjects, neither was his imagination very poetical, but there
was a moral beauty in his figures; he seems to have made humanity as
elevated as it can be, and to have stopped just on the line which
separates earthly excellence from the heavenly. He often painted the
single figure of Christ, of which Luebke says: "By grand nobleness of
expression, solemn bearing, and an excellent arrangement of the drapery,
he reached a dignity which has rarely been surpassed." Near the close of
his life he painted a few subjects which represent gay and