MASTERPIECES
IN COLOUR

EDITED BY . .
M. HENRY ROUJON

VERONESE

(1528-1588)

IN THE SAME SERIES

IN PREPARATION

[Pg iv]

VERONESE

BY FRANÇOIS CRASTRE
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY FREDERIC TABER COOPER
WITH EIGHT FACSIMILE
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
NEW YORK—PUBLISHERS

[Pg v]

[Pg vi]

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS
[W·D·O]
NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A

[Pg vii]

CONTENTS

[Pg viii]

[Pg ix]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Pg x]

[Pg 11]

INTRODUCTION

It has been said of Veronese that he was the most
absurd and the most adorable of the great painters.
Paradoxical as it sounds, this judgment is
perfectly true. Absurd, Veronese undoubtedly was,
in his disdain of logic and common sense, in his
complete indifference to historic truth and school traditions,
and in his anachronistic habit of garbing antiq[Pg 12]uity
in modern raiment. “I paint my pictures,” he
said, “without taking these matters into consideration,
and I allow myself the same license which is granted
to poets and to fools.” And it is precisely his riotous
fantasy, his naïve self-confidence, his own peculiar
way of understanding mythology and religion that
have made him the adorable artist whose glory has
been consecrated by the centuries.

Thanks to the rare power of his genius, the most
audacious improbabilities vanish beneath the magic
adornments with which he covers them, and it hardly
occurs to one to notice his glaring historical errors or
the superficialities of his pictorial conceptions in the
continual delight inspired by the sense of concentrated
life in his characters, the splendour of his colouring,
the caressing charm of his draperies, the brilliance of
his skies, and the impression of youth and of joy that
radiates from his work. Veronese was neither a
thinker nor an historian, nor a moralist; he was quite
simply a painter, but he was a very great one. If his
preference is for the joyous scenes of life, that is because
life treated him indulgently from his earliest
[Pg 15]
years; if he delights in giving to his pictures a sumptuous
setting, in which silk, brocades and precious vases
abound, it is because he acquired a taste for these
things in that matchless Venice of the sixteenth century,
marvellous treasury of sun-bathed, gaily bedecked
palaces, wherein all the opulence of the East
had been brought together. What these paintings of
Veronese reproduce for us are the thick, rich carpets
of Smyrna, newly unladen from Musselman feluccas,
monkeys imported from tropic islands, greyhounds
brought from Asia, and negro pages purchased on the
Riva dei Schiavoni, the Quay of the Slaves, to bear
the trains of the patrician beauties of Venice. But,
above all, one finds in them Venice herself, Venice
the Glorious, queen of the sea, Venice sated with gold
and lavish of it, sowing her lagunes broadcast with
palaces, and the robes of her women with diamonds.
More truly than Titian or Tintoretto, Veronese is the
chosen painter of the Most Serene Republic. He not
only decorated the ceilings of her palaces and the
walls of her churches: but he took the city of his
adoption as the setting for all his compositions; it is[Pg 16]
at Venice that the Feast at the House of Simon the
Pharisee, the Feast at the House of Levi take place;
it is in Venetian surroundings that Jesus presides over
the Wedding Feast at Cana.

One can understand how the painters of the Venetian
school, nurtured in the dazzling and joyous
light of the sea-born city, transferred to their palette
that vibrant colour with which their artist eyes were
filled; nor is it surprising that Veronese, passionately
enamoured of Venice, achieved, through his wish to
glorify her, that magnificence of colour and of expression
which remains his distinctive mark.

THE FIRST YEARS

Nevertheless, Veronese was not a native of Venice
but of Verona, as is indicated by the surname that
was bestowed upon him during his life and that has
adhered to him ever since. His rightful name was
Paolo Caliari. He was born at Verona in 1528 and
not in 1530, as is asserted by several of his biographers,
notably by Carlo Ridolfi. The correct date is now
verified by the discovery, in San Samuele of Venice,[Pg 17]
Veronese’s parish church, of the register of deaths
wherein the decease of the great painter is entered as
having occurred the 19th of April, 1588, the very day
when he completed his sixtieth year.

Paolo Caliari belonged to a family of artists. His
father, Gabriele Caliari, was a sculptor and enjoyed
some little reputation in his own city. Veronese’s
uncle, Antonio Badile, was a painter, and in such
pictures as are known to be his we find evidence not
only of a good deal of ability, but of a certain facile
grace that justifies the high esteem in which his compatriots
held him.

Veronese’s father, being of a logical turn of mind,
wished, since he himself was a sculptor, to make a sculptor
of his son. Veronese learned to model statuettes
in clay, and, aided by his precocious intelligence, he
acquired a real dexterity in this art, quite remarkable
in one so young.

But this was not his vocation. Frequent visits
to the studio of his uncle Badile had awakened in him
an enthusiasm for painting. He applied himself to
learn to paint with so much zeal and imagination[Pg 18]
that his father made no attempt to check his inclination,
but entrusted him to Badile. The latter was
Veronese’s real teacher, though not the only one, for
young “Paolino” also attended the studio of another
Veronese painter, Giovanni Carotto.

From the outset, Veronese applied himself energetically
to perfecting his skill in line drawing. The
future genial painter of wondrous fantasy yielded himself
without a murmur to the rude but salutary exigencies
of technique. Strange caprice on the part
of an artist who was destined to show so much dexterity
in execution and lavishness in decoration, his
tastes turned towards the most severe and least
imaginative of masters, Albert Durer and Lucas
Van Leyden. It was through copying the engravings
of these illustrious masters that he learned how to draw.
Such lessons always bear their fruit. In this laborious
apprenticeship, Veronese acquired that steadiness
of hand, that firmness of line that was later to
be noted even in his most exuberant paintings,
despite the enormous quantity of canvases that he
produced in the course of his life.[Pg 19]

Even his earliest attempts reveal his abundant
and facile genius; and these first, and one might
almost say immature, works already foreshadow the
great artist. The affectionate patronage of his uncle
Badile greatly facilitated his début. At an age when
young folk have not usually begun to form dreams
of the future, young Caliari had already forced himself
upon the attention of Verona, and the Chapter of
the Church of San Bernardino commissioned him to
paint a Madonna.

He acquitted himself well of this task. The work
proved satisfactory, other orders followed, and the
name of the young artist swiftly spread beyond the
confines of his native city. A short time later,
the cardinal Ercole di Gonzaga decided to decorate the
cathedral at Mantua, recently rebuilt by Giulio
Romano. He sent a summons to Caliari, as well as
to three other Veronese painters who enjoyed a big
reputation: Battista del Moro, Paolo Farinato degli
Uberti, and Brusasorci, who was regarded as the
Titian of Verona. The cardinal instituted a sort of
rivalry between these four artists, and gave them[Pg 20]
orders for four pictures, destined to be competitive.
The subject entrusted to Paolo Caliari was a representation
of the Temptations of St. Anthony. The
young painter applied himself resolutely to the task.
Far from intimidating him, the redoubtable competition
of his three elders served only to excite his
ardour and stimulate his imagination. He painted
the saintly anchorite defending himself against the
blows which the Devil is dealing him with a stick and
repulsing the advances of a woman who has been
raised up from hell itself to tempt him. The cardinal,
delighted with this picture, gave preference to Veronese
over his three competitors.

Veronese lost no time in returning to Verona, but,
however flattering the esteem with which his compatriots
surrounded him might be, he was not long
in finding that the limited scope afforded by his native
city was too narrow for his activity. He had a boyhood
friend, Battista Zelotti, a painter like himself,
and also like himself tormented by dreams of glory.
Together they quitted Verona and betook themselves
to Tiene, in the duchy of Vicenza. Here they had[Pg 21]
the good luck to meet a man of discrimination, in
the person of the paymaster-general Portesco, who
entrusted them with the decoration of his palace.
The two friends apportioned the work between them;
while Zelotti, who had studied at Venice under Titian,
undertook the fresco painting, Veronese decorated the
intervening panels in grisaille, or gray monochrome.
The result of this friendly collaboration was a complete
series of paintings, of great diversity: hunting
scenes, banquets, dances and numerous subjects borrowed
from mythology or from history, the Loves of
Venus and Vulcan, the Heroism of Mucius Scaevola,
the Festival of Cleopatra, and a remarkable Sophonisba.
This work in common was not without profit
to Veronese. Zelotti’s manner closely resembled his
own; they both show the same qualities of colouring
and composition, and the same broad and facile touch.

They collaborated once again on fresco work in
the home of a certain Eni, in the village of Fanzolo,
in the neighbourhood of Trevise. After this they separated,
Zelotti going to Vicenza, whither he had been
summoned, while Caliari betook himself to Venice,[Pg 22]
the Promised Land towards which he was impelled
by his ardent desire for glory.

When he arrived in the Most Serene Republic,
Caliari was not yet twenty-five years old. We have
no reliable document regarding these first years of
his residence there, nor even of the impressions produced
upon him by the opulent and magnificent city.
But these impressions are easy to conceive. To
anyone so sensitive as he to externals, Venice must
have seemed enchanted ground. How could he have
failed to be dazzled, in acquainting himself with that
gorgeous city, enthroned upon the Adriatic, like a
pearl in a casket of velvet? With what joyous eagerness
his colour-enraptured eye must have rested upon
those white marble palaces, moulded and filagreed
in arabesque, those churches paved with precious
mosaics, those quays swarming ceaselessly with a
picturesque and motley crowd of Armenians, Greeks
and Moors, spreading the sun-bathed pavements
with a glittering display of spangled ornaments, turquoise-inlaid
cutlery, and multicoloured fabrics.

If the models that passed in endless procession
[Pg 25]
before his eyes impressed him as magnificent opportunities,
the sight of what other painters had already
wrought from this material aroused his artist soul to
keen enthusiasm. The whole constellation of the
great Venetians had converted the city of the Doges
into an incomparable museum: Giorgione, with his
melancholy compositions, full of vague dreams; Carpaccio,
with his naïve and picturesque reproductions
of Venetian life. Among the living, Sansovino, simultaneously
architect and artist, who built marvellous
palaces and adorned them with graceful frescoes;
Tintoretto, sombre genius whose creative power
largely redeemed the somewhat obscure tints of his
palette; and above them all, Titian, the great Titian,
who at that time was already eighty years of age,
yet still manipulated his brush with the firm hand of
youth.

All these masters Veronese admired indiscriminately,
as was fitting in a young painter who had
never known other models than those of his own
small city. He ran the danger of acquiring mannerisms
and becoming an imitator. By a special grace[Pg 26]
accorded to genius alone, Veronese succeeded in remaining
himself and borrowing nothing either from
his predecessors or his contemporaries. From his
contemplation of the works of the others he gained
only a nobler passion for his art; and he altered nothing
in the personal vision which he already formed
of men and of things.

Vigorous, blessed with good health, jovial by
nature, and much enamoured of the bright and sparkling
side of life, Veronese fashioned his paintings in the
image of his own temperament. His work was always
an exaltation of the joy of living, an apology for those
agreeable externals that render existence pleasant
and easy; fine dwellings, flowers, copious repasts,
women luxuriously apparelled, precious fabrics, horses
and dogs of fine breed. If he wished to paint a Last
Supper, it mattered little to him that legend and history
agree regarding the simplicity and the humble
station of Jesus and his disciples: History and tradition
did not count with him. A repast, whatever
it would be, he could not conceive of, unless around
a sumptuous table, covered with costly vessels, served[Pg 27]
by attendants in picturesque costumes and enlivened
by the antics of buffoons or the harmonies of music.
It was thus that he painted Christ, it was after this
original conception that he worked out his immortal
compositions. Accordingly no one could justly appraise
Veronese, without first setting aside, as he did,
all those historic data which he voluntarily ignored.

THE SOJOURN IN VENICE

There are few painters of whose private life so
little is known as of that of Veronese. The contemporary
documents have disappeared and scarcely
anything more remains than a few of his letters;
and even those are silent as to his day-by-day existence.
All that it is possible to know—and to this
his paintings abundantly bear witness—is that he
was possessed of an agreeable humour, and a pleasing
personality;—worthy gentleman, somewhat quick
of temper and permitting no slight to be put upon
his dignity, still less upon his honour. He was neither
a sycophant nor a courtier, accepting commissions
but never soliciting them. His “disinterestedness,[Pg 28]”
writes Charles Yriarte, “has remained celebrated;
during one entire period of his life, the greater part
of the contracts which he signed with communities
and with convents stipulate barely the value of his
time as a remuneration for his work. This was before
the time when painters were expected to furnish their
colours and their canvases, but demanded only the
price of their toil. Later on, having become, if not
rich—that he never was,—at least celebrated and
independent, he acquired a taste for personal luxury;
he delighted in brilliant fabrics and wore them with
ostentation; he loved horses, dogs, and hunting; he
frequented high society, and brought to it that Italian
open-heartedness which makes the company of the
illustrious a relaxation and a pleasure rather than an
embarrassment or an effort. He won valuable friendships
and was able to retain them until his death.”

Of these friendships, the most efficacious was that
of the Prior of the convent of San Sebastiano, Bernardo
Torlioni, a Veronese by birth, to whom he had
brought letters of introduction. No sooner had young
Caliari arrived in Venice at the beginning of 1555,[Pg 29]
than he presented himself to his venerable compatriot,
who promptly took a fancy to him, and bestirred
himself to serve him. Thanks to Torlioni, Paolo obtained
an order for five pictures, including one large
composition, the Coronation of the Virgin and four
dependent panels. These paintings were destined
to adorn the sacristy of the church of San Sebastiano,
of which Bernardo Torlioni was prior. When the work
was done, the Chapter expressed itself as so well
pleased that it entrusted him with the decoration of
the church itself, including the ceiling. It was here
that Veronese painted his admirable series of episodes
from the History of Esther and Ahasuerus.

The success of this series was so great that the
edifice was placed unconditionally in his hands, and
he was free to follow his fantasy unhampered. Following
a method which was habitual with him, he
enhanced the effect of the large panels painted in
fresco, by means of smaller intervening scenes in
chiaroscuro. Here also one finds him indulging his
hobby for architectural painting, such as always
occupies a large place in his pictures; all around the[Pg 30]
church he painted truncated columns, ornamented
with arabesques and foliage, “with a richness and a
pomp that were already an inseparable feature of his
style.”

In the works of Veronese, the accessories always
play a highly important part; and it is not difficult
to understand the reason. His main object being to
delight the eye, he attributed considerable space to
vases, furniture, armour, fruits, flowers, graceful draperies,
brilliant costumes, mettlesome horses, and more
especially dogs, with which it was his special whim to
embellish his paintings. The dog was his favourite
animal, and even at that epoch its presence was to be
noted in every picture.

When the church, completely decorated, was
opened to the public, there was general rejoicing;
Veronese received the unanimous vote of approval,
from the populace as well as from the artists.

From that day forth, the ability of the young
painter was openly acknowledged, and his fortune
assured. Furthermore, he had arrived in Venice at
a propitious hour. It was the moment when the[Pg 31]
Most Serene Republic, victorious over the seas and
surfeited with wealth, attained the zenith of her glory.
In her opulence Venice chose to employ her treasures
in self-adornment; palaces arose on all sides, the Ducal
Palace itself was redecorated; Sansovino was just
completing the new Government offices. The wealthy
brotherhoods and equally wealthy parishes were seeking
out every painter of repute to decorate their
churches and their convents.

Accordingly, Veronese had arrived at the crucial
moment to satisfy the demands of art. His rivals
were negligible: Salviati, Battista Franco, Lo Schiavone,
Zelotti, Orazio Vocelli the son of Titian, could
none of them hold their own against him. Bordone
was at the court of Francis I. Tintoretto alone, at
the height of his powers, could counterbalance Veronese’s
glory. As to the aged Titian, he was no longer
producing pictures with his old-time fertility; furthermore,
he had already divined the genius of Veronese
and conceived a friendship for him.

And so, throughout thirty-three years, from 1555
to 1588, the masterpieces that were born beneath[Pg 32]
Veronese’s fingers succeeded one another without
interruption. The walls of his adopted city became
overspread with his luminous canvases, eloquent of
the joyousness of Italy, resplendent with the triumphant
beauty of Venice.

Shortly after the decoration of San Sebastiano was
completed, Daniele Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia
and wealthy patrician of Venice, had a splendid
residence built him at Masiera by Palladio, a celebrated
architect of the period. Being a man of artistic
taste, he wished to embellish it with paintings and
statues worthy of its imposing architecture. For
the sculpture he summoned Alessandro Vittoria; the
paintings were entrusted to Paolo Veronese.

The patriarch Barbaro was one of his friends, and
accordingly allowed him a free hand, and even left
the choice of subjects to him.

Veronese, who was a prodigiously fertile artist,
left not a single space in Barbaro’s house unoccupied
with colour. Wherever space would not permit of
large compositions, he painted trophies, garlands,
flowers, even statues, possessing all the lustre and
[Pg 35]
relief of marble. Elsewhere he sketched in architectural
fantasies, simulating colonnades and porticoes,
opening upon landscapes borrowed from the
realm of dreams; he conceived imaginary doors,
before which fictitious lacqueys appeared to be standing.
The principal subjects treated by Veronese at Masiera
include Nobility, Honour, Magnificence, Vice, Virtue,
Flora, Pomona, Ceres and Bacchus; then in the ceiling
of the cupola he gathered together all the gods of
Olympus, grouped around Jupiter.

The decorations in the palace at Masiera further
augmented Veronese’s fame. He was now acknowledged
to be the foremost painter of Venice, next to
Titian. Barbaro had been so delighted with his
talents that he determined to do him a service. Standing
well at court, he recommended him to the Signoria.
As a result of this, the latter entrusted him with the
task of redecorating the halls and chambers of the
Doge’s Palace, in conjunction with Tintoretto and
Orazio Titian. Which of the three artists proved
superior it is impossible to decide to-day, because a
fire, occurring in 1576, destroyed their paintings along[Pg 36]
with the palace. But public opinion of that period
gave the palm to Veronese.

It seems as though this verdict must have been
justified, in view of the esteem in which his name
was held.

Shortly afterwards, Sansovino having completed
the construction of the library, the procurators instructed
the architect to arrange with Titian as to a
choice of painters to decorate it in competition. Veronese
was immediately designated, together with
Zelotti, Batista Franco, Giuseppe Salviati, Lo Schiavene
and Il Fratina, who were to divide the twenty-one
ceiling panels between them. Three round compartments
fell to the lot of Veronese, who filled them
with figures representing Music, Geometry with Arithmetic,
and Honour. Under Veronese’s brush these
cold abstractions took on the most charming forms;
they were represented by graceful women, each surrounded
by the attributes of the science which she
symbolized. A recompense was promised by the
procurators to the artist whose paintings should be
adjudged most beautiful. Titian was enthusiastic[Pg 37]
over those of Veronese. Loyal and noble artist that
he was, he himself solicited the votes of the painters
who had taken part in the competition, and thus
Veronese was declared winner by the voice of his own
competitors. The senate offered him a golden chain
which he delighted to wear on solemn occasions.

These great official works did not diminish the number
of his productions for churches, convents, or private
persons of wealth. No other artist affords an example
of similar fecundity.

And what verges upon prodigy is that he never
employed collaborators, as so many other celebrated
painters have done; the only one that he is known to
have had is his brother Benedetto Caliari, whose
artistic aid was limited to painting in the prospective
of the vast architectural designs with which it pleased
Veronese to embellish all his canvases.

The epoch of his most fertile production was between
1562 and 1565; it was also the period in which
he executed his largest and most celebrated paintings,
notably his famous canvas of the Wedding at Cana,
his Feast at the House of the Pharisee, his Feast at[Pg 38]
the House of the Leper, and his Feast at the House
of Simon.

These four pictures are known under the name of
the four Feasts. Two of them belong to France and
hang in the museum of the Louvre, in the room known
by the name of the Salon Carré; these are the Feast
at the House of Simon the Pharisee and the Wedding
at Cana.

THE WEDDING AT CANA

Veronese has treated this subject twice. Accordingly
the picture in the Louvre must not be confounded
with that of the same name in the Brera museum at
Milan. In spite of the value of the latter, it bears
no comparison to the gigantic canvas in the national
museum of France.

This picture of the Wedding at Cana was painted
by Veronese for the refectory of the convent of San
Giorgio Maggiore, on the island that faces the Riva dei
Schiavoni. It remained there until the time of Napoleon’s
Italian Campaign. Bonaparte, who loved the arts
without understanding them, laid profane hands on the
[Pg 41]
great majority of Italian masterpieces. This painting
by Veronese was one of the number, and found a place
in the Louvre. The treaty of 1815 obliged France
to restore these treasures, but the Austrian commissioners,
appointed to accomplish the restitution, became
alarmed at the difficulties of transportation which
the Wedding at Cana presented. They accordingly
consented to exchange this canvas for a painting by
Le Brun, The Feast at the House of the Pharisee.
Veronese’s masterpiece remained in the Louvre, in
which it is one of the most flawless gems.

The contract drawn up between Veronese and the
Prior of San Giorgio Maggiore for the execution of
this picture has been preserved. The painter bound
himself to deliver it within a year, since the contract
was signed June 6, 1562 and the delivery of the
canvas took place of September 8, 1563. He
was to be furnished with canvas and colours, to be
entitled to take his meals at the convent and receive
a cask of wine as additional recompense. As to
remuneration for his work, it was fixed by mutual agreement
at 324 ducats, which, in the 16th century, cor[Pg 42]responded
to 972 francs in the coin of France. Taking
into consideration the enhanced value of money since
that epoch, these 972 francs would represent to-day
7,000 francs. Such is the price which the greatest
artist of his time received for a masterpiece which
to-day commands the admiration of the entire
world.

Never did Veronese display so much brilliance,
dispense so much imagination as in the Wedding at
Cana; never did he show a greater dexterity in execution;
for, however considerable the dimensions of
the canvas may be, it demanded nothing less than
genius to distribute without clash or disproportion
the hundred and thirty-two personages which compose
it. A painter less thoroughly sure of himself would
have made a sorry mess of this Feast; Veronese has
produced a composition that is admirable for its
balance, in abounding charming details, and unexpected
and picturesque episodes, that do not in the
least detract from the effect of the painting as a
whole.

On this picture, as on so many others from the[Pg 43]
brush of Veronese, one cannot, as has already been
said, pass an equitable judgment, unless one accepts,
without question, the master’s method. Veronese
had no more respect for religious tradition than he
had for mythological legend. To take issue with the
incongruities and anachronisms of the Wedding at
Cana, is voluntarily to debar oneself from discussing
it. If historic exactitude is the one thing that counts
in a painting, then this picture simply does not exist.
But happily painting has no need to justify itself to
history; it is amply sufficient to itself, without borrowing
anything from history, and loses nothing of its
beauty if perchance it does violence to history. And
of this the Wedding at Cana furnishes a most eloquent
proof.

The composition of this famous picture is well
known. Jesus is seated in the middle focus, at the
centre of the table, which is curved on each side in
the form of a horse-shoe. To fill this immense table,
Veronese did not go to the scriptures in search of
personages; he drew them from his surroundings
and from his own imagination.[Pg 44]

The groom, a handsome, black bearded young
man, clad in purple and gold, is no other than Alphonso
d’Avalos, Marquis del Vasto, and the bride is a portrait
of Eleanora of Austria, sister of Charles V., and
Queen of France. On the left, one discovers,
with some surprise, Francis I., Charles V., the Sultan
Achmed II., and Queen Mary of England. Beside
the Sultan is a woman richly robed and holding a
tooth-pick; she is Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di
Pescara; then, further on are monks, cardinals, and
personal friends of the artist. Standing up, clad in
brocade and holding a cup in his hand, is Veronese’s
brother, Benedetto Caliari. In the centre are a group
of musicians. The octogenarian bending over his
viol, is a portrait of Titian; Bassano is playing the
flute; Tintoretto and Veronese himself draw their
bow across the strings of a ’cello.

The success of the Wedding at Cana was triumphal.
The great painters of Venice, contemporaries of
Veronese, overwhelmed him with proofs of their
admiration; even morose Tintoretto found some extremely
amiable words in which to praise his rival in[Pg 45]
fame, and Titian embraced the happy painter when
he chanced to meet him in the city streets.

These praises were merited; the Wedding at Cana
is quite truly one of the most beautiful masterpieces
in the world’s collection of paintings.

The renown obtained by this admirable work
brought Veronese a host of orders. The various cities
vied with each other to secure him to decorate their
churches or their convents. His first patron, the
Prior Torlioni, ordered a picture from him for the
convent of San Sebastiano, the church of which he
had already decorated. Veronese, by no means ungrateful,
painted for him the Feast at the House of
the Leper, in 1570; three years later he painted for
the dominican monastery of San Giovanni e Paolo the
Feast at the House of Levi, to decorate one side of
the refectory. The monks had only a modest sum
at their disposal and tremblingly offered it to the now
celebrated painter; they naïvely added the donation
of a few casks of wine. Veronese exhibited the most
complete disinterestedness by accepting these humble
offers of the Prior. This was his third Feast.[Pg 46]

The fourth, known under the name of the Feast
at the House of Simon the Pharisee, was executed for
the refectory of the Brotherhood of Servites. It
represents Magdalen on her knees, wiping the feet of
Christ with her hair. This painting now hangs in
the Louvre, opposite the Wedding at Cana. It has
been the property of France for two centuries, and the
history of its acquisition by Louis XIV is curious
enough to be worth the telling. Colbert, having
learned that Spain had negotiated for the purchase
of the Feast at the House of Simon, resolved to go
to any lengths in order to acquire it himself, on behalf
of Louis XIV. The French ambassador to Venice,
Pierre de Bonzi, was charged with the negotiations.
To address himself directly to the Servites was impossible,
since there was a law in the Venetian Republic
forbidding the sale and exportation of any native works
of art. Bonzi pursued the course of informing the
Signoria of his royal master’s wish. The Signoria,
desirous of securing the good will of the great king,
without violating her own laws, purchased with
public funds the picture from the Servites, and straight[Pg 47]way
offered it to Louis XIV, who returned warm thanks
to his “very dear and great friends, allies and confederates,
after having seen this rare and most perfect
original.”

VERONESE AND THE INQUISITION

These four Feasts of Veronese won him a widespread
renown. But there were certain hostile spirits,
uncompromising traditionalists, to whom the fantastic
elements which he introduced into the composition
of his religious pictures were necessarily strongly displeasing.
To introduce dwarfs, buffoons, men at arms
under the influence of liquor, at a feast where Jesus
and his disciples take part,—did not this savour of
irreverence, nay, worse than that, of heresy?

The Feast at the House of Levi the Publican, executed
for the convent of San Giovanni e Paolo, in
which Veronese had given free rein to his imagination,
was denounced to the Holy Office, and on July 18,
1573, the artist was summoned before the tribunal
of the Inquisition.

In the Most Serene Republic this tribunal scarcely[Pg 48]
had the same redoubtable power with which the sombre
fanaticism of Philip II had armed it in Spain. It
was none the less a grave risk to incur its displeasure
at an epoch when the Papacy still held undisputed
sway over the guidance of souls. Consequently this
prosecution caused Veronese serious alarm.

M. Armand Baschet discovered quite recently in
the archives of the Frari, at Venice, the official record
of the trial with all the questions put to him and his
answers.

The judges took special exception to his Feast at
the House of Levi, which seemed to them an outrage
upon religion. Each one of the figures in the picture
was brought up separately for discussion, and the luckless
Veronese was required to make explanation.
What was the significance of that man who was bleeding
at the nose? Why were those two soldiers, on
the steps of the stairway, one of them drinking and
the other eating, clad in German uniform? And, at
a repast where the Saviour figures, what was that
ridiculous buffoon doing with a parroquet on his wrist?

Veronese defended himself as best he could. He
[Pg 51]
assumed a sort of injured innocence and apparently
failed to understand the enormity of the irreverence
with which he was charged. Next, he took shelter
behind the precedent established by the great masters.
He cited Michelangelo and his Last Judgment:

“At Rome, in the Pope’s own chapel, Michelangelo
has represented Our Lord, his Mother, Saint
John, Saint Peter and the Celestial Choir, and he has
represented them all naked, even the Virgin Mary,
and that, too, in diverse attitudes, such as were certainly
not inspired by our greatest of religions.”

Finally, Veronese emphatically denied the charge
of any intentional irreverence toward the Church; he
declared that he had simply permitted himself, perhaps
wrongfully, a certain amount of license such as is
accorded to poets and to fools.

His contrite attitude won him the indulgence of
the Tribunal. But the judges demanded that he should
correct his picture, and he was obliged to remove the
dwarfs and the fools and to modify the attitude of
his men at arms. This is the picture that may be
seen to-day at the Accademia delle Belle Arti, at[Pg 52]
Venice, retouched in accordance with the orders of
the Holy Office.

THE JOURNEY TO ROME

In spite of his keen desire to pay a visit to Rome,
Veronese was kept in Venice by his ceaseless productivity,
and he attained the age of forty without ever
having had the chance of a sight of the Eternal City.
Of all the masterpieces in that home of the Pontiffs,
he knew nothing, excepting of such as he had seen copied
in the form of engravings. The appointment of his
friend and patron as ambassador to the Holy See,
afforded him an opportunity to make the journey so
many times projected and deferred.

No documents exist regarding Veronese’s sojourn
in Rome, but at all events it was fairly brief. Beyond
this, we are reduced to mere conjecture. Furthermore,
there is no extant evidence to sustain the idea that he
practised his art in the Eternal City. If he had
painted any pictures there, some trace of them would
surely have been discovered. It must therefore be
concluded that he contented himself with admiring[Pg 53]
the masterpieces with which his illustrious predecessors,
Raphael and Michelangelo, had enriched the
capital of the Pontiffs.

But his temperament was too peculiar, his manner
too individual, and we may as well acknowledge, his
nature too superficial, to permit of his experiencing
those profound and overwhelming impressions that
radically modify an artistic career.

And for this we ought rather to be thankful than
to complain, since it was only his obstinate insistence
upon remaining himself that saved Veronese from
shipwreck upon the ever threatening reef of imitation.

THE RETURN TO VENICE

From the moment of his return to Venice, Veronese
was besieged from all sides; once again he found himself
enslaved to forced labor by the incessant contracts
demanded of him by his fellow citizens. The scantiness
of documents which we possess regarding his life
does not permit us to name the chronological order
in which he painted his pictures. We shall therefore
gather them into groups for the sake of convenience[Pg 54]
in studying his more important works. Furthermore,
to study one by one, all of his paintings, is not to be
thought of; for this painter was one of the most prolific
producers of which the history of art makes mention.
In every one of his pictures will be found, more
or less accentuated, those qualities of composition, of
picturesqueness, and of colour which together constitute
his glory. Accordingly we shall limit ourselves
to indicating, at the different stages of his career,
those pictures which show most deeply the imprint
of his genius and which also are most closely related
to the life of Venice of which he was, in a certain way,
together with Tintoretto, the official painter. For the
rest the reader may be referred to the complete catalogue
of the works of Veronese given at the close of
this book.

Concerning the private life of the artist we are as
poorly informed as concerning the date of his pictures.
We know only that he married and that he had two
sons, Gabriele and Carletto. When they were old
enough to hold a brush he entrusted them to Bassano,
a Venetian painter whose talent he held in high esteem.[Pg 55]
As regards himself, the documents of the period vaunt
his uprightness, his honesty and his keen sense of
honour. Ridolfi, one of his biographers, who wrote
sixty years after Veronese’s death, and relied upon the
recollections of people who knew him personally,
pictured him as a man of strict principles and settled
habits, and economical almost to the point of avarice.
He cites, as an example of this, that the artist rarely
employed ultramarine, which was very costly at that
time, and thus condemned his works to premature
deterioration.

His fortune, the extent of which we learn from the
fiscal records of Venice, consisted in a few holdings of
real estate at Castelfranco in Trevisano. In 1585
he purchased a small estate at Santa Maria in Porto,
not far from the Pineta of Ravenna. He also possessed
a bank account representing approximately six thousand
sequins. But what was that for a man who was
the most famous and the most fertile artist of his
time?

We have already given examples of his disinterestedness.
Many a time he refused opportunities of[Pg 56]
great wealth. He even declined the offers made
him by Philip II, who tried to lure him to Spain
and would have entrusted him with decorating the
Escurial.

It was about the period of his return to Venice
that Veronese completed his celebrated picture: The
Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander after the
Battle of Issus, now in the National Gallery at London.
The episode is well known; Darius III., King of
Persia, conquered at Issus by Alexander, sends his
wife and children to beg for clemency from the victor.
Admitted to the conqueror’s tent, the unfortunate
wife perceives a warrior in resplendent garments whom
she takes for Alexander, and throws herself at his feet.
The warrior, however, is only Ephestion, Alexander’s
lieutenant and friend. The wife of Darius apologizes
for her mistake, but Alexander raises her up and says:
“You made no mistake, he also is Alexander.”

Such is the historic theme. But what matters
history to Veronese? Upon this classic subject he has
built the most fantastic, the most improbable, and at
the same time the most fascinating of his compositions.[Pg 57]
The picture was painted for the Pisani family which
had given him hospitality, and every one of the figures
contained in it represents a member of that household.

It is related that, in order to spare his hosts the
necessity of thanking him or the obligation of making
some return, he rolled up his canvas and slipped it
behind his bed in such a way that it would not be
discovered in his room until after his departure.

It is scarcely probable that Veronese could have
painted so large a canvas—fourteen metres by seven—in
the necessarily brief space of a friendly visit,
or that he could have painted in his figures, which are
all of them portraits, without the knowledge of the
Pisani family. But the anecdote is so pretty that it
is pleasant to accept it as true.

It was a direct descendant of the Venetian Procurator,
Count Victor Pisani, who sold the painting
to England in 1857.

THE DECORATION OF THE DUCAL PALACE

In 1577 a violent conflagration destroyed the
greater part of the Ducal Palace. In this disaster[Pg 58]
all the pictures perished with which Tintoretto, Horatio
the son of Titian, and Veronese, had decorated it.

Desiring to restore the palace promptly and give
it a new splendour, the Senate appointed a committee,
authorized to distribute orders among the painters and
decorators of Venice. The competitors were numerous
and eager to secure a chance to collaborate in so
glorious an enterprise; and to this end they paid eager
court to the committee. Veronese alone made no
advances, being unwilling to appear solicitous. This
dignified course was looked upon as excess of pride,
and one day when Jacopo Contanari met him in the
street he reproached him with it. Veronese replied
that it was not his business to seek for honours but to
be deserving of them, and that he had less skill in
soliciting work than in executing it.

But they could not exclude Veronese, whose fame
had now become universal. Accordingly he was
chosen with Tintoretto, and to them were added
Francisco Bassano and the younger Palma. The
Ducal Palace is therefore a sort of museum of the
works of these masters, and forms the most brilliant
[Pg 61]
collection of paintings relating to the public life and
the glorification of Venice.

Veronese was entrusted with the decoration of the
great central oval of the ceiling, and the lateral panels.
In these he painted the Defence of Scutari, the Taking
of Smyrna, and the Triumph of Venice. This last
named painting is considered by many as Veronese’s
crowning achievement.

Venice is here represented in the form of a superb
and smiling woman, seated upon the clouds, her eyes
raised towards Glory, who offers her a crown. At
her side, Renown celebrates her grandeur; at her feet
are grouped Honour, Liberty, Peace, Juno, and Ceres;
lower down an ethereal structure of admirable daring
and architectural beauty sustains a great assemblage
of gentlemen and ladies richly clad, of cardinals and
bishops, all emulously uniting in the glorification of
Venice. On the ground level standards, trophies,
and cavaliers add the finishing touch to the composition,
and are treated with incomparable vigour and
skill both in chiaroscuro and in perspective.

Although of more modest dimensions, the Taking[Pg 62]
of Smyrna and the Defence of Scutari are in no wise
inferior to the great central composition. In this
same Hall of the Grand Council, Veronese painted
two other great canvases, representing the Military
Expedition of the Doges, Loredan and Mocenigo.

But for that matter there is not a room in the
Palace of the Doges in which Veronese is not represented
by one or more canvases; in the Hall of the
Anticollegio, there is a ceiling painting representing
Venice Enthroned, a work that has unfortunately
deteriorated; in the Hall of the Collegio, a Battle of
Lepanto, a Christ in Glory, Venice and the Doge Venier,
a Faith, a St. Mark, and a ceiling which is considered
as the most beautiful in the whole Palace of the Doges:
Venice Upon the Terrestrial Globe, Between Justice
and Peace. The Hall of the Council of Ten contains,
in the oval ceiling panel: An Old Man resting his Head
on his Hand and A Young Woman. In the Hall of the
“Bussola,” St. Mark crowning the Theological Virtues,
the original of which is at the present time in the
Louvre. Mention should also be made of: The
Triumph of the Doge Venier over the Turks; the[Pg 63]
Return of Contanari, Victor over the Genoese at Chioggia;
the Emperor Frederick at the feet of Alexander
III., and, in the Hall of the Ambassadors, a magnificent
allegory of Venice, personified as a patrician lady
seen from behind, robed in white satin and of marvellous
grace.

Veronese also had a share in the decoration of
another of Venice’s monumental buildings, situated
near the bridge of the Rialto and known by the name
of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. This building, which
is to-day occupied by the Post Office, formerly served
as warehouse for German business men having commercial
relations with the Republic. These rich
merchants had had the palace adorned by the greatest
painters in Venice. Giorgione and Titian had decorated
its walls not only within, but also on the exterior,
where traces of the paintings can still be seen. Veronese
was entrusted with four compositions, one of which
is an allegory representing Germany receiving the
Imperial Crown. It is believed that the canvas now
in the Museum at Berlin, entitled Jupiter, Fortune and
Germany, once formed part of the decoration of the[Pg 64]
Fondaco dei Tedeschi. It was purchased at Verona
in 1841. Veronese’s celebrity, about the year 1580,
had become world-wide. Every sovereign who prided
himself on his art gallery wished to possess some of
his work. The indefatigable artist endeavoured to
satisfy them all; he even corresponded personally with
several of them. For the Duke of Savoy, he painted
The Queen of Sheba Visiting Solomon; to the Duke
of Mantua, who had honoured him with his friendship,
he sent a Moses Saved from the Waters; to the Emperor
Rudolph II. he gave a Cephale and Procris and
a Poem of Venus. These last two canvases, of which
the German Emperor was very proud, were taken
from him by Gustavus Adolphus, when that triumphant
conqueror passed through Vienna.

Throughout his life, Veronese remained faithful
to the pompous, brilliant, ornamental school of painting.
Not that he was incapable of essaying other
types, but because it was his own preference to paint
ease and luxury on a broad scale. He sometimes had
occasion to handle more vigorous subjects, and in this
he was completely successful, as the magnificent[Pg 65]
painting entitled Jupiter Destroying the Vices abundantly
bears witness.

The surprise experienced in the presence of this
noble work, executed with the energy of a master-hand,
is surpassed only by admiration for the versatility
of a genius which could at will adapt itself to unfamiliar
formulas. This famous painting, proud and virile
in style, was taken from Italy by the victorious Armies
of France, and placed in Versailles in the chamber of
Louis XIV., where for a long period it served as the
ceiling decoration. It was finally removed and now
hangs in the Louvre, in company of other masterpieces
by the same artist.

THE LAST YEARS

The execution of his large official canvases did not
prevent Veronese from responding to all the appeals
which came to him from every side. His unequalled
activity, his prodigious facility made it possible for
him to satisfy these demands. No one knows all the
pictures which he painted for private individuals,
nor all the frescoes with which he adorned certain[Pg 66]
dwellings that have since disappeared. Nevertheless
what a formidable list the works of this painter would
make if the attempt were made to draw up such a list
without omissions! Ridolfi devotes not less than
thirty pages to a simple enumeration of the pictures
which Veronese painted for the neighbouring islands
of Venice, such as Murano and Torcello, for the country
house of the Grimani at Orlago, for that of the Duke
of Tuscany at Artemino, or for the Palace of the Pisani.
To Verona, to Brescia, to Vicenza, to Treviso, to
Padua; to Venice also, to the Frari, to Ognissanti, to
the Umilta, to San Francisco del Orto, to Santa Catarina,
for which he painted his famous Marriage of St.
Catherine, everywhere, in short, where they required
him, he sent marvellous canvases, magic with colour
and with life;—canvases for which to-day museums
vie with each other for their weight in gold.

But Veronese was no longer young; he had entered
well into the fifties; yet nothing in his craftsmanship
betrayed fatigue or waning powers. A genius almost
unique, he went steadily forward and no one could
say of him, in the presence of his latest productions,[Pg 67]
what has so often been said of other illustrious painters:
“That is a work of his old age!” Veronese had the
rare privilege of remaining young to the end.

One day, while following a procession on foot,
Veronese contracted a cold, and after a brief illness he
died. His obsequies took place in the parish church
of San Samuele, April 19, 1588. On that day he
would have completed his sixtieth year.

When we remember that, up to the eve of his death,
Veronese continued to paint with as steady a hand as
at the age of twenty, his death seems premature, and
it is only natural to deplore that this matchless artist
should have failed to obtain the ripe age of Titian.
What masterpieces he might still have painted!

Such as they are, brilliant and luxuriant, his works
remain the most abundant that have ever come from
the palette of any one painter, and Veronese stands
lastingly, in the history of Art, as the most amazing
of all masters, both in colour and in composition.[Pg 68]

[Pg 71]

THE WORKS OF PAOLO VERONESE

[Pg 72]

[Pg 73]

THE WORKS OF PAOLO VERONESE

FRANCE

ENGLAND

[Pg 74]

ITALY

BELGIUM

SPAIN

GERMANY

AUSTRIA

SWEDEN

[Pg 77]

RUSSIA