Weekday alterpiece

The weekday altarpiece by Paolo Veneziano (1345) is a painting on board with pictures arranged on two registers. It was commissioned by Doge Andrea Dandolo (1307 - 1354), one of the most important buyer of works of art for the basilica and the last doge to be buried in St. Mark's, and it was exhibited to the faithful only on important feast-days.

This is the masterpiece of fourteenth-century Venetian painting, in which other western and oriental elements are mixed. The big half-figures in the upper register recall the Greek or Venetian-Greek iconostasis. The narrative cycle in seven pictures on the lower register, however, is of western style and conception, with the life and martyrdom of St. Mark, along with some episodes from the Venetian legend, which celebrates the saint's protection of the city.
In the upper register around Christ we find the Virgin and St. John the Evangelist and the saints of Venetian devotion: St. Theodore and St. Mark, on the left St. Peter and St. Nicholas, on the right. Of the seven episodes with the stories of St. Mark, the most important is the martyrdom of the Saint. With the martyrdom, the Saint is directly associated with the redeeming suffering of Jesus Christ.

Paolo Veneziano and sons
Weekday altarpiece
Venice, 1345