Conference

The forbidden canvas by the painter Bellini - with Olivier Weber

5 March 2025 — 5:00 pm

At the end of the 15th century, the Venetian painter Gentile Bellini traveled to Constantinople, invited by a mysterious emissary of Sultan Mehmed II, who had conquered the capital of the Byzantine Empire a few years earlier. It was a peculiar mission aimed at fostering peace in the Mediterranean between Christians and Muslims.

In collaboration with Alliance Française de Venise.

Conference will be held in French with translation into Italian.

Free meeting upon reservation.

Gentile Bellini, Portrait of Mehmet II, 1480

Olivier Weber

Olivier Weber (Montluçon, 1958), travel writer and great reporter, has won the Prix Albert-Londres, the Prix de l’Aventure and the Prix Joseph Kessel. His books include Le faucon afghan, La Bataille des anges, Le Barbaresque, L’Enchantement du monde and Frontières, published by Paulsen. A long-time war correspondent for the French and British press, then French ambassador for five years, he has spent time with some fifteen guerrilla movements and covered some twenty conflicts, from Eritrea to Afghanistan, from the Sahara to Iraq. His novels and travelogues have been translated into a dozen languages.