17 Facts About Paolo Veronese

Paolo Caliari, known as Paolo Veronese, was an Italian Renaissance painter based in Venice, known for extremely large history paintings of religion and mythology, such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi.

Paolo Veronese took his usual name from his birthplace of Verona, then the largest possession of Venice on the mainland.

The census in Verona attests that Paolo Veronese was born sometime in 1528 to a stonecutter, or spezapreda in the Venetian language, named Gabriele, and his wife Caterina.

Paolo Veronese later changed his name to Paolo Caliari, because his mother was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman called Antonio Caliari.

Paolo Veronese was often called "Paolo Veronese" before the last century to distinguish him from another painter from Verona, "Alessandro Veronese", now known as Alessandro Turchi.

In 1552 Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, great-uncle of the ruling Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, commissioned an altarpiece for Mantua Cathedral, which Paolo Veronese painted in situ.

Paolo Veronese doubtless used his time in Mantua to study the ceilings by Giulio Romano; it was as a painter of ceiling frescos that he would initially make his mark in Venice, where he based himself permanently from the following year.

Paolo Veronese moved to Venice in 1553 after obtaining his first state commission, ceilings in fresco decorating the Sala dei Consiglio dei Dieci and the adjoining Sala dei Tre Capi del Consiglio in the Doge's Palace, in the new rooms replacing those lost in the fire of 1547.

Paolo Veronese then painted a History of Esther in the ceiling for the church of San Sebastiano.

In 1573 Veronese completed the commission for The Feast in the House of Levi, a last-supper painting for the rear wall of the refectory at the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Castello, Venice.

The tribunal's interrogation of Paolo Veronese was cautionary, rather than punitive; political, rather than judicial; nonetheless, Paolo Veronese explained to the Inquisitiors that "we painters take the same liberties as poets and madmen" in telling a story.

That an artist, such as Paolo Veronese, had successfully perdured against the Inquisition's implied accusation of heresy, indicated he had the discreet political support of a patrician patron of the arts.

An artist's biography of Paolo Veronese was included in the second edition of the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, by Giorgio Vasari, with improved coverage of the painters of the Venetian school.

Delacroix wrote that Paolo Veronese made light without violent contrasts, "which we are always told is impossible, and maintained the strength of hue in shadow".

Paolo Veronese headed a family workshop, including his younger brother Benedetto as well as his sons Carlo and Gabriele, and his nephew Luigi Benfatto, that remained active for a decade or so after his death in Venice in 1588, signing their work "Haeredes Pauli", and continuing to use his drawings.

The Caliari family continued and another Paolo Veronese Caliari published the first monograph on his ancestor in 1888.

Paolo Veronese was one of the first painters whose drawings were sought by collectors during his lifetime.