Between imperial self-fashioning and military alliance: The gift of a turquoise glass bowl from Persia to the Republic of Venice

In the aftermath of the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Turks (1453), the Republic of Venice dispatched an ambassador to the Muslim King of Persia, in 1471, to forge a military alliance against the Turks. In that Venetian-Persian treaty, the Republic assured the king that Venetian naval forces would attack the Ottomans from the sea and the King of Persia agreed to invade the eastern frontiers of the Ottomans overland. In September 1472, Venetian chronicles recorded the arrival of a Persian envoy, who stayed in Venice upon agreement to receive the artillery, including harquebuses and cannons, which Persia needed to confront the Ottomans. The Persian’s mission to Venice was marked by a precious gift to the Republic, now preserved in the Treasury of San Marco, of a Turquoise Glass Bowl, composed of a ninth-century glass with Persian motifs, Byzantine gold cloisonné enamels, and Kufic inscriptions. In my paper, I investigate the hybrid material and visual culture of this gift by considering the provenance of the object, from the ninth century to 1472, when it was given to the Venetian state. As a trophy gained by the king in his plundering of the Timurid treasuries of Herat and Tabriz (1469), I argue, the King of Persia recycled the Turquoise Bowl with its Byzantine-style mount to serve two intertwined ambitions. First, the gift acted as a vehicle for the King’s imperial self-fashioning. Second, it projected his cross-religious alliance with Venice, a city-state with a Byzantine heritage, through the gift’s Byzantine ornamentation.