Part 2 (1/2)

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 Ba.s.sano, a Venetian painter whose talent he held in high esteem. As regards himself, the doc.u.ments 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 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 cla.s.sic subject he has built the most fantastic, the most improbable, and at the same time the most fascinating of his compositions. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 all the pictures perished with which Tintoretto, Horatio the son of t.i.tian, 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 compet.i.tors 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ill.u.s.trious artist.]

But they could not exclude Veronese, whose fame had now become universal. Accordingly he was chosen with Tintoretto, and to them were added Francis...o...b...s.sano 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 a.s.semblage 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 finis.h.i.+ng 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 Amba.s.sadors, 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.