Islamic Art and Culture in the Renaissance—The True Moor of Venice

Michael Barry, the Patti Cadby Birch Consultative Chairman, Department of Islamic Art, MMA, presents this examination of the mysterious central figure in one of the most enigmatic paintings of the Italian Renaissance, Giorgiones “Three Philosophers“ (Venice, 1504). The discussion of this work, which is now in the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna, sheds light on the role that Islam and Islamic philosophy played in late medieval and early Renaissance European perceptions. See the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History for the following related essays: Venice and the Islamic World, 828 1797 Islamic Art and Culture: the Venetian Perspective: