It was commissioned by Bishop Jacopo Pesaro (b. 1460) as an ex-voto for the Venetian naval victory leading to the retaking of Santa Maura (Lefkada) from the Ottoman Turks in August 1502, a rare victory in the Ottoman–Venetian War (1499–1503), which concluded the next year with Venetian concessions, including the return of Santa Maura. Pesaro was a member of the leading patrician Pesaro family, who was appointed by the Borgia Pope Alexander VI a papal legate, commander of the Papal fleet in the region, and bishop of Paphos on Cyprus, a Greek island which was then a Venetian territory.