PAOLO VERONESE (1528-1588), the name given to Paolo Caliari or Cagliari, Italian painter of the Veronese and Venetian schools, who was born in. Verona in 1528. His father, Gabriele Caliari, was one of a family of stone-carvers come to Verona from Bissone on the Lake of Lugano. Paolo was at first trained as a stone-carver, but soon took to painting. He worked under Antonio Badile, a painter of small ability who cannot have helped him much. Vasari states that Paolo then became the pupil of Giovanni Caroto, a distinguished architect and archaeologist as well as a painter, but there seems to be no stylistic connection between them. Other Veronese artists such as Domenico Bru sasorci and the Farinati probably influenced his development. "The Holy Family and St. John," in the Cannon collection at Fiesole, is an example of his early style. It is essentially Veronese, simple, solid, sincere; the inimitable brilliance of the flesh tones and the space arrangement presage the later and more accom plished work of his Venetian period. In the spring of 1552 Car dinal Ercole Gonzaga commissioned Paolo and three other Vero nese painters, Battista del Moro, Paolo Farinato, and Domenico Brusasorci to paint a series of altarpieces for the cathedral at Mantua. Paolo's altarpiece, "The Temptation of St. Anthony," has recently been identified with a picture in the museum at Caen. At this early period he also worked in several country places with his fellow townsman, Battista Zelotti, on large decora tions of churches and palaces. Some of this work is still to be seen in the church of Castelfranco. The frescoes of ladies stand ing behind a balustrade in the Villa Giacomelli at Maser, though much restored, are good examples of this decorative type of work. In 1555 we find Paolo settled in Venice, but it is now thought that he worked in Venice even before that date, and that he executed the paintings for the Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci with "Jupiter Thrusting Thunderbolts" (Louvre) about the year 1554. Among his earliest work in Venice are the paintings in the sacristy and the church of S. Sebastian, where an uncle of his was prior of the monastery. In 1556 he was asked to paint three tondi with allegorical subjects for the library of St. Mark's. Six other painters were employed on similar tasks, but Paolo's work was generally recognized as the best, and he was tendered a golden chain as an honorary distinction. It is doubtful whether Paolo ever visited Rome. Ridolfi states that he went there in the company of Girolamo Grimani, the Venetian ambassa dor, whose journey took place about 1560. On June 6, 1562, he received the commission for "The Marriage at Cana" for the refectory of S. Giorgio in Venice. This gigantic and stupendous picture, containing some hundred figures and heads, several of them portraits, was completed in 1563. It was one of the treas ures taken to France by the armies of the Revolution, and it was placed in the Salon Carre in the Louvre, where it remains; its great size and the difficulty of moving it served as an excuse for retaining it, when, in 1815, other pictures had to be returned. In 1566 Paolo went to Verona, where he had a commission to paint in his own parish church, and there married the daughter of his former master, Badile. In 1573 he painted another great
banquet scene—"The Feast of Levi"—for the refectory of S. Giovani e Paolo in Venice—but he had to appear before the tribunal of the Inquisition to explain that the dwarfs and fools and other figures introduced for decorative effect meant no dis paragement to religion. In 1575 he painted "The Martyrdom of St. Giustina" at Padua. Meanwhile, fires had destroyed several rooms in the doge's palace and Paolo was called in to make good the damage. In the Sala del Collegio he painted the "Com memoration of the Battle of Lepanto." For the rich ceiling de-, signed by Ant. del Ponte he painted a "Glorification of Venice," and for the ceiling of the Sala del Gran Consiglio he painted the "Triumph of Venice." The qualities that strike one in Paolo's works are their splen dour and spaciousness. He was eminent as a decorator of large architectural spaces, and supreme in representing numerous figures in a luminous and diffused atmosphere, while in richness of con temporary costumes he surpassed all other Venetians. The colour effects are orchestral in richness and variety; and his silvery tone, obtained by the juxtaposition of warm and cold hues, is essen tially Veronese, and differentiates his best works from the golden lustre of Titian. Paolo Veronese died in Venice on April 19, 1588. He was buried in the church of S. Sebastiano and his bust, by Camillo Bozzetti, was placed over his grave by his brother and his sons. In his workshops in Venice he employed many assistants, among whom were his relatives, notably his brother Benedetto (1538-1598), his nephew Alvise Benfatto (1544-1609), and his two sons Gabriele (1568-1631), and Carlo, known as Carletto (157o-1596). Certain pictures executed after Paolo's death, those for instance in the doge's palace, are signed Heredes Paoli.
It is impossible to enumerate all the great works of this pro lific master. Among his most celebrated works are : "The Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander," in which the principal figures are portraits of the Pisani family—in the National Gallery, London. Here the master displays his great gift of portraiture, and his gift of combining in groups the members of some patrician family as taking part in some historical event. The Dresden gal lery has some fine examples: "The Madonna of the Cuccina Family," the "Adoration of the Magi" and "The Marriage at Cana." In the Louvre is the "Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee," painted for the Servites in Venice (1570-78) ; the Venetian academy has some of the finest works of the master : "The Marriage of St. Catherine," painted for the church of St. Caterina, and "Ceres and Venice," a ceiling painting from the doge's palace, besides the "Feast in the House of Levi." See C. Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell Arte (edit. D. v. Hadelm, 1914) ; Dal Pozzo, Vite de pittori Veronesi; Zanetti, Della pittura Veneziana; P. Caliari, Paolo Veronese (Verona, 1888) ; A. Bell, Paolo Veronese (1904) ; Giuseppe Fiocco, Paolo Veronese (Bologna, 1928).