The English prince has blond curls and is called Aetherius . You can see him on the left of the picture. He says goodbye to his father by kneeling down in front of him and shaking his hand. On the left in front, a group of men are watching the farewell, one of them is looking directly at us and his neighbor is pointing his finger at the farewell scene.
To the right of the flagpole you can see the first meeting of Aetherius and Ursula. The two shake hands, a sign that they are now engaged. But Ursula has set comprehensive conditions for the wedding: Aetherius is to become a Christian and go on a pilgrimage to Rome with her and 11,000 virgins.
Ursula's parents are not coming on this pilgrimage. Therefore, Ursula has to say goodbye: On the far right, the engaged couple are kneeling in front of Ursula's father, her mother is wiping tears from her face. The pilgrimage begins with the ship and the departure is already being prepared. In the background, many people are being taken to the ships in small boats. The engaged couple are also waiting for a boat on the jetty.
The story of Ursula is told in nine pictures. The lay brotherhood Scuola di Sant'Orsola commissioned Carpaccio to create the pictures. A lay brotherhood is a community of lay people, that is, of church members who are not priests. The pictures hung in the lay brotherhood's meeting room in Venice.
In November 1488, Carpaccio, who was twenty years old at the time, received the big commission. It was finished in 1500. Carpaccio came up with a special way of signing the pictures. On each picture you will find a small, realistically painted piece of paper, which seems to be hanging or lying around somewhere. This small piece of paper is called a cartellino, the Italian word for "little piece of paper". On the piece of paper, Carpaccio's name and the year in which he painted the picture are written in Latin.
Have you spotted the cartellino yet?