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 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, 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.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--THE VISION OF ST. HELENA
(In the National Gallery, London)
This picture has often been attributed to Zelotti, who was a friend
and at one time a collaborator of Veronese. But the composition, the
colouring, the finish of detail, and the sumptuousness of decoration
betray the hand of the immortal author of the _Wedding at Cana_.]