nobility. In 1501 the Doge of Venice com-
missioned paintings from Carpaccio for
the Doge’s Palace, where the painter’sLion
of St. Markcan still be viewed. Carpaccio
painted for religious schools and confra-
ternities of Venice and is best known for
The Legend of St. Ursula, a series of nine
paintings completed about 1490 for Saint
Ursula, a Venetian fraternity of merchants.
His most famous paintings are large pan-
oramic works, carefully drawn to glorify
the city and its history, and without the
intensity of religious and personal feeling
that became fashionable among later Ve-
netian painters. He depicted the lives of
the saints in painting cycles ofLife of the
Virgin, Life of St. Stephen, Life of St. George,
andLife of St. Jerome. His other famous
works includeTen Thousand Martyrs of
Mount Ararat, St. Sebastian, andThe Holy
Pilgrim. He set his paintings in the streets
and homes of the town where he lived,
and in this way his works provide a realis-
tic look at the Venice of the Renaissance.
Cartier, Jacques .................................
(1491–1557)
A French explorer and the first European
to navigate the interior of Canada, Cartier
was born in the port of Saint Malo in Brit-
tany, then a duchy independent of the king
of France. He earned a reputation as an
able mariner and, in 1534, set out on his
first voyage of exploration with two ships
and 120 crew members. He made short
work of the Atlantic crossing, arriving off
the coast of Newfoundland after a voyage
of just twenty days. He sailed north to the
Strait of Belle Isle, and explored what are
now known as Prince Edward Island and
the Magdalen Islands. After returning
south as far as the mouth of the Saint
Lawrence River, and taking two Iroquois
boys named Domagaya and Taignoagny
hostage, he returned to France. Cartier was
then rewarded with a commission to re-
turn to North America. He set out with
his young Iroquois guides and three ships
in May 1535, and sailed up the Saint
Lawrence, still determined to find a north-
erly route to the Spice Islands as well as a
legendary land of blond men and mineral
riches the local Indians knew as Sanguenay.
The expedition sailed past the site of Que-
bec, where Cartier reunited the boys with
their father, Chief Donnaconna, and then
sailed as far as a large village of Huron In-
dians, Hochelaga at a site named Mont
Royal (Montreal) by Cartier. The expedi-
tion wintered along the river, but many
members took sick from scurvy. The com-
pany was saved by the use of white cedar
bark, a remedy provided by Domagaya.
On a third voyage, in 1541, Cartier
sailed with five ships to the mouth of the
River Cap Rouge. He had brought farmers
and convicts to establish a productive
farming settlement; his instructions were
to assist Jean-Francois de la Rocque in his
attempt to found a permanent North
American colony for the French king.
Cartier built a winter fort at Charlesbourg-
Royal, skirmished with the Hurons, and
waited for de la Rocque to make his ap-
pearance. The settlement was decimated
by scurvy and Indian attacks; Cartier fi-
nally abandoned it in the spring of 1542.
While sailing off the coast of Newfound-
land, he finally crossed paths with de la
Rocque but decided to return immediately
to France. On returning to France after
this voyage, he settled in a country house
near Saint Malo. Cartier’s exploration of
the Saint Lawrence and surrounding land
opened this region to settlement and colo-
nization by France; the French-speaking
province of Quebec has since this time
kept its ties to France despite the domi-
nance of the rest of eastern North AmericaCartier, Jacques