In 1577 a violent conflagration destroyed the greater part of the
Ducal Palace. In this disaster 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.
[Illustration: PLATE VII.--THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE
(In the Accademia delle Belle Arti, Venice)
There is, perhaps, no other religious subject which has so often
stimulated the inspiration of the great Italian painters. Veronese
himself has treated the same scene several times. The painting here
reproduced is considered, in view of the picturesqueness of its
composition, the beauty of the faces, and the brilliance of the
colouring, to be one of the best works of the illustrious artist.]
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 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 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
_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 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 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.