[SCA-AE] When Venice Shook the World

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NY Times has an article about the 1500-1530 art show at the National 
Gallery - even a short slide show sample.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/arts/design/07vene.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=login

I won't reprint the whole thing, but here's a slice of the article:

Time. Unlike some surveys, the Washington show covers a slice rather 
than a stretch of history: three decades, 1500 to 1530, critical ones 
for both Venice and its art. Stupendously rich and ambitiously 
expansive, the city suddenly found itself under attack, by Ottoman Turks 
from one side and by armies from Rome, Spain and France on the other. A 
devastating fire destroyed the Rialto. Plagues descended; Giorgione 
probably died in one of them, in his 30's.

In the funny way history works, an era of civic and political 
catastrophe was a boom time for art. Stars were in alignment, literally. 
Giovanni Bellini was on the job; his most gifted students — Giorgione, 
Titian, Sebastiano del Piombo — were at the start of brilliant careers.

August visitors from abroad further charged the air: Leonardo made a 
brief but indelible visit; Dürer stayed for over a year. Venetian 
painting, until then somewhat isolated from the rest of Europe, became a 
cosmopolitan phenomenon, but one with its own styles and themes.