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.
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 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.