| A number of the most daring artworks produced by the Cretan School are compared with engravings by Western artists, particularly by Raphael’s associate Marcantonio Raimondi, in an attempt to ascertain how Cretan artists reacted to the works of the Italian Renaissance. The paper examines how Western influences were gradually assimilated from the early 16th to the late 18th century, and the way in which Italian models were transformed in accordance with the principles of Byzantine aesthetic tradition, in Cretan iconographic compositions that in turn had a decisive influence on the development of post-Byzantine art. |