The flag and symbols of Skenderbeu appear in the famous Venice church

In CX CVIII, third series 10 II (2011) in the prestigious journal of Literature and Art has been published an article by Lucia Nadin with the title “-Propossions of rereading Paolo Veronese's painting in St Sebastian in Venice: Skenderbeg Cristi athletes and the Albanian church”.

The article, the author points out, is just a study presentation in its hands that aims to establish Albania a special place in the wonderful art of Venice: The Church of St. Sebastian, located in the Dorsodovo district, very famous as a copyright church: it's nothing more than a very rare church example where the decorative part bears the name of one artist: Paolo Caliar, veronese, one of the greatest performers of the Venetian painting of the 1500 ' s.

This church is a symbolic place, a great monument to the Renaissance, with international fame, and known as the temple of the artist he wanted and buried. Unfortunately, a number of his frescoes were destroyed over time.

Veronosis paintings, on the ceiling of sacristy, walls, and all other decorations were made in a time span between 1555 and 1565. The whole cycle actually celebrates the triumph of Faith/Child/Virginist Mary through the exotic story of their martyr St. Sebastian.

A flag waving on one of the three ceiling ovaries on which the Bible stories of Esther and Mordecai are re-visited, featuring a black eagle on a red background and this is read as a Hasburgian flag.

In fact, the Hasburgian flag has never had a red but open background.

Lucia Nadin's proposal is everything else and is based on her studies of Albanian migration to Venetian soil in the second half of the 1400th, due to the great events that depictd the Balkans and marked mass migration after Skenderbeu's death and after the establishment of peace with the Turks in 1479, in the course of the two terrible conquests that Shkodra and Drivast from 1474 to 1478.

The researcher, Italian Literature Doctrine at the State University in Tirana, ranging from the date of the flag on the ceiling of the church, calling the Skenderbeu flag, described by Marin Barlett and confirmed by Konica in 1908 and then on the case of Albanian independence in 1912: The two-headed Albanian in the red background.

Nadin reads the adventures of Moardocheo, who fights for the salvation of the Ebraic people, events that he refers to as attributed to Gjergj Kastriot. So it analyzes that the entire celebration of St. Sebastian, an entirely unknown way of the Venetian tradition, is presented, not as the saint of miracles, but as Miles Cristian, facing Diocletian, the great persecutor of Christians, and going to certain martyrdom, for the church triumph.

In St. Sebastian, Miles Crist, he represents metaphorally in this case Gjertot Skenderbeun, who was named by different popes like Atleta Cristi, the defender of Western Christianity.

Goat's Head

On the roof of the church you'll recognize the head of a goat, which was actually one of the medieval animals, the symbol of Christ's foresight.

The head of Skenderbeu is located in Vienna at the Kunsthistorices Museum. The goat's head is known to be part of the adornment of the skenderbe helmet, which became king of his people followed by the intersections of Pope Pius II and ended tragically with the pope's death in Ancona.

So it's about another Kastriot symbol, so Albanian.

In the martyring of St. Sebastian, who is so beautiful reflected in the author's presbytary canvasses, the author only reads the martyrdom of the entire church of Albania, and a specific character representing a garment of two-headed eagle crowned with the family history of the angels, known in history in the 1950 ' s, and honored with San Giorgio's Cavalresk Order, a family that ventured with extraordinary courage to remember Albania's historical memory.

In fact, we are in expectation of Lucia Nadin's computer work on St. Sebastian's Church to discover an important page of Albanian history and a place in medieval art for more of the work of one of the greatest European painters of all time: Paolo Veronezen.

We want to remember at the end of this text, the remarkable discovery of Lucia Nadin on the Shkodra Status, recovered by researcher after seven centuries from the Museo Correr Library in Venice. An extraordinary contribution of Italian researcher to Albania's history.