A Short History of the Middle Ages Fourth Edition

Plate 8.7: Gentile Bellini, Portrait of Mehmed II (1479). Mehmed, like other Renaissance princes, hired
Renaissance artists to give him luster. In the 1460s he tried to obtain the services of the Rimini artist and
architect Matteo de’ Pasti, but his plans were foiled by Venice, which wanted no rivals at Constantinople.
The Venetians sent their own Gentile Bellini instead, who celebrated the sultan’s power with this portrait.