Venice and the Ottoman Empire: a cross-cultural exhibition at the Frist Art Museum

From May 30 to September 1, 2025, the Frist Art Museum presents the exhibition “Venice and the Ottoman Empire”

Source: Frist Art Museum · Image: Vittore Carpaccio. “Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan” (detail), 1501–05. Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia

This ambitious cross-cultural exhibition explores the relationship between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire, two rival superpowers in the Mediterranean, over four centuries (1400–1800) and in multiple spheres: artistic, culinary, diplomatic, economic, political, and technological. The exhibition comes to a spectacular conclusion with a gallery dedicated to Mariano Fortuny’s Ottoman-inspired fashions and decorative arts created in his Venetian palazzo in the early 20th century.

Featuring more than 150 works of art in a broad range of media, including glass, paintings, prints, metalwork, and textiles, the exhibition draws from the vast collections of Venice’s storied civic museums. The Venetian loans are joined by a trove of recently salvaged objects from a major Adriatic shipwreck, the large Venetian merchant ship Gagliana Grossa that sank while traveling from Venice to Istanbul in 1583. These fascinating items have never been exhibited outside Croatia, where the wreck occurred. Organized by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and the museum box.