The Virgin and Child

c. 1430

Born

1453

His sister Nicolosia marries Mantegna

Giovanni's sister Nicolosia marries the painter Andrea Mantegna, who becomes kin to the Bellini house; it is his art that will exert the strongest influence on Giovanni.

1470

The first commission at the Scuola di San Marco

In 1470 Giovanni receives his first commission, to work with Gentile and other artists at the Scuola di San Marco, where among other subjects he paints a Deluge with Noah's Ark.

1475

Antonello da Messina in Venice

In 1475 Antonello da Messina arrives in Venice and meets Giovanni Bellini; Antonello's oil-painting methods are visible in many of Bellini's later works.

after 1479

Conservator of the paintings in the Great Council Hall

After 1479 much of Bellini's energy goes into his duties as conservator of the paintings in the great hall of the Doge's Palace: he restores his predecessors' works and paints new subjects on Venice's part in the wars of Frederick Barbarossa. His reward is first the reversion of a broker's place in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi and then, instead, a fixed annual pension of eighty ducats.

by 1485

Married to Ginevra

A record from 1485 attests that Giovanni Bellini is married to a woman named Ginevra.