Gian and Gentile had a good deal to do about cutting the first blocks for initials—they got the idea, I think, from Nuremberg. And now there are Dutchmen down here from Amsterdam learning how to print books and paint pictures. Several of them are in Gian’s studio, I hear—every once in a while I get them for a trip to the Lido or to Murano.
Gentile Bellini is his brother and looks very much like him. The Grand Turk at Constantinople came here once and saw Gian Bellini at work in the Great Hall. He had never seen a good picture before and was amazed. He wanted the Senate to sell Gian to him, thinking he was a slave. They humored the Pagan by hiring Gentile Bellini to go instead, loaning him out for two years, so to speak.
Gentile went, and the Sultan, who never allowed any one to stand before him, all having to grovel in the dirt, treated Gentile as an equal. Gentile even taught the old rogue to draw a little, and they say the painter had a key to every room in the palace, and was treated like a prince.
Well, they got along all right, until one day Gentile drew the picture of the head of John the Baptist on a charger.
“A man’s head doesn’t look like that when it is cut off,” said the Grand Turk contemptuously. Gentile had forgotten that the Turk was on familiar ground.
“Perhaps the Light of the Sun knows more about painting than I do!” said Gentile, as he kept right on at his work.
“I may not know much about painting, but I’m no fool in some other things I might name,” was the reply.
The Sultan clapped his hands three times: two slaves appeared from opposite doors. One was a little ahead of the other, and as this one approached, the Sultan with a single swing of the snickersnee snipped off his head. This teaches us that obedience to our superiors is its own reward. But the lesson was wholly lost on Gentile Bellini, for he did not even remain to examine the severed head for art’s sake. The thought that it might be his turn next was supreme, and he leaped through a window, taking the sash with him. Making his way to the docks he found a sailing vessel loading with fruit, bound for Venice. A small purse of gold made the matter easy: the captain of the boat secreted him, and in four days he was safely back in Saint Mark’s giving thanks to God for his deliverance.