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| Paolo Veronese Feast in the House of Levi 1573 oil on canvas Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |
"In religious painting the Church did not limit its attention to the exclusion of classical or pagan elements. It disapproved of the introduction of the secular in any form. We are lucky enough to have the full details of one incident in which it took action against an artist in this matter, and the account is worth quoting at some length, since it throws light on the official view and on the state of mind of a certain group of artists. In July 1573 Paul Veronese was summoned before the Tribunal of Inquisition to defend his painting of the 'Feast in the House of Levi' executed for the refectory of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and now in the Academy in Venice. The main objections made by the Inquisitors to the painting were that Veronese had introduced into it dogs, dwarfs, a fool with a parrot, men armed in the German manner, and a servant whose nose is bleeding – all details which are not mentioned in the Biblical story and are not suitable to a religious painting. Veronese at first argues ingeniously that Levi was a rich man and no doubt had servants, soldiers and dwarfs about him, but he is rapidly forced to his real explanation. When he was asked whom he supposed to have been actually present at this feast, he answered: 'I believe that Christ and the apostles were there. But, if in a painting there is space left over, I fill it with figures from my imagination.' And again: 'My commission was to make this picture beautiful according to my judgement, and it seemed to me that it was big and capable of holding many figures.' His explanations were not accepted and he was ordered to make certain alterations in detail, which he duly carried out. It is typical of the methods of the Counter-Reformation that the Inquisition in this case was satisfied with certain changes of detail which left the painting exactly as worldly in feeling as it was before. But the replies of Veronese are even more instructive. His ideas are entirely those of the Renaissance. He thinks in terms of beauty not of spiritual truth, and his object was to produce a magnificent pageant painting, not to illustrate a religious story. The explanation is that, compared with most other parts of Italy, Venice was little affected by the Tridentine phase of the Counter-Reformation. The Jesuits were never firmly established there and the Inquisition was subject to State control. Certain painters, like Tintoretto, absorbed the new ideas and their paintings are filled with the turbulent spirituality of the Counter-Reformers, but they were in a minority, and it was still possible in the later sixteenth century for artists like Veronese or Palladio to work on principles which are fundamentally those of the Renaissance."
– from the chapter on The Council of Trent and Religious Art in Anthony Blunt's Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1600 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940)
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| Paolo Veronese Feast in the House of Levi (detail) 1573 oil on canvas Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |
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| Paolo Veronese Feast in the House of Levi (detail) 1573 oil on canvas Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |
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| Paolo Veronese Feast in the House of Levi (detail) 1573 oil on canvas Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |
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| Paolo Veronese Feast in the House of Levi (detail) 1573 oil on canvas Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |