On April 22, 2007, the Metropolitan Museum of Art sponsored a symposium to discuss issues surrounding the exhibition Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797. The symposium brought together a group of experts on the interactions between Venice and Islam. In his introduction to the symposium, Stefano Carboni, curator of the exhibition and administrator of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum, emphasized the three concepts governing the exhibition: to show the reasons why Venice had so many trade relationships with the Islamic world, to examine the relationship between trade and diplomacy, and to discuss Venice’s pragmatic approach to the exchanges of materials and techniques involved in the production and trade of high-quality decorative arts. Patricia Fortini Brown of Princeton University was the first speaker; she presented a paper titled “Reclaiming the Holy Land: Orientalism in the Early Modern Period.” In it, she emphasized the strong presence of the Holy Land and the Islamic East in Venice in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. This was initiated by the translation of St. Mark’s relics from Alexandria to Venice in 828. This story is told twice in the mosaics of San Marco: once on a tympanum on the façade and once...