Paolo Veronese

Lore & Background

Veronese took his usual name from his birthplace, Verona. The census in Verona attests he was born sometime in 1528 to a stonecutter, or spezapreda in the Venetian language, named Gabriele, and his wife Caterina. He was their fifth child. He later changed his name to Paolo Caliari, because his mother was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman called Antonio Caliari. His earliest known painting is signed "P. Caliari F.," the first known instance in which he used this surname. After using "Paolo Veronese" for several years in Venice, after about 1575 he resumed signing his paintings as "Paolo Caliari."

By 1541, Veronese was apprenticed with Antonio Badile, who was later to become his father-in-law, and in 1544 was an apprentice of Giovanni Francesco Caroto. An altarpiece painted by Badile in 1543 includes striking passages that were most likely the work of his fifteen-year-old apprentice. He soon developed his own preference for a more radiant palette. In 1553 he moved to Venice 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. His panel of Jupiter Hurling Thunderbolts at the Vices for the former is now in the Louvre. He then painted a History of Esther on the ceiling for the church of San Sebastiano (1556–57). These ceiling paintings and those of 1557 in the Marciana Library (for which he was awarded a prize judged by Titian and Sansovino) established him as a master. In the late 1550s, Veronese decorated the Villa Barbaro in Maser, a newly finished building by the architect Andrea Palladio. The Wedding at Cana, painted in 1562–1563, was also a collaboration with Palladio. It was commissioned by the Benedictine monks for the San Giorgio Maggiore Monastery. The contract insisted on the huge size (to cover 66 square meters), that the pigment and colors should be of premium quality, and that the blues should contain the precious mineral lapis-lazuli. The contract also specified that the painting should include as many figures as possible. In 1565 Veronese married Elena Badile, the daughter of his first master, and by whom he would eventually have a daughter and four sons. In 1573 he completed 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. Originally titled The Last Supper, the painting was to replace a Titian painting burnt in a fire; Veronese's oversized (5.55m x 12.80m) replacement depicted a Last Supper banquet scene that included German soldiers, dwarves, and animals.

Reader's Guide

Veronese has always been appreciated for "the chromatic brilliance of his palette, the splendor and sensibility of his brushwork, the aristocratic elegance of his figures, and the magnificence of his spectacle," but his work has been felt "not to permit expression of the profound, the human, or the sublime," and of the "great trio" he has often been the least appreciated by modern criticism. Nonetheless, "many of the greatest artists ... may be counted among his admirers, including Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo, Delacroix, and Renoir." His large paintings of biblical feasts, crowded with figures, painted for the refectories of monasteries in Venice and Verona are especially famous, and he was also the leading Venetian painter of ceilings. Most of these works remain in situ, or at least in Venice, and his representation in most museums is mainly composed of smaller works such as portraits that do not always show him at his best or most typical.

Did You Know?

• Veronese was the fifth child of a stonecutter named Gabriele and his wife Caterina.
• His earliest known painting is signed 'P. Caliari F.,' the first known instance in which he used the surname Caliari.
• The Wedding at Cana (1562–1563) covers 66 square meters and the contract specified the blues must contain lapis-lazuli.
• The Feast in the House of Levi (1573) was originally titled The Last Supper and replaced a Titian painting burnt in a fire.
• Veronese's ceiling paintings for the Marciana Library (1557) earned him a prize judged by Titian and Sansovino.

From Verona's Stonecutters to Venice's Master

Paolo Caliari entered the world in 1528 as the fifth child of Gabriele, a stonecutter by trade, and his wife Caterina, in Verona — then the most significant mainland territory under Venetian rule. His early artistic formation unfolded in two Veronese workshops: first under Antonio Badile, who would later become his father-in-law, and then under Giovanni Francesco Caroto, both prominent local painters. By fifteen, his talent was already outpacing the workshop level, as evidenced by passages in a 1543 Badile altarpiece that scholars attribute to the young apprentice. Though trained within the Mannerist currents then fashionable in Parma, he gravitated toward a more luminous, naturalistic palette. His permanent move to Venice in 1553, secured by a state commission for the Doge's Palace, marked the beginning of his most celebrated phase. There he would earn his place alongside Titian and Tintoretto as one of the three giants who defined sixteenth-century Venetian painting, distinguished above all as a supreme colorist and the era's foremost ceiling painter.

Monumental Spectacles and Ceiling Marvels

Veronese's most celebrated achievements are his enormous narrative compositions depicting religious and mythological feasts, crowded with figures set against grand architectural backdrops. His first such monumental banquet scene, the Feast in the House of Simon, was commissioned by 1556 but not completed until 1570; its scattered composition and diffuse focus made it less successful than his later refectory murals. In the late 1550s, while taking a break from his San Sebastiano ceiling work, he decorated the Villa Barbaro in Maser — a newly completed Palladio building — with frescoes that married humanistic learning to Christian devotion, employing complex perspective and trompe-l'œil effects that produced what has been described as a luminescent visual poetry. His ceiling paintings at the Marciana Library in 1557 earned him a prize adjudicated by none other than Titian and the architect Sansovino, cementing his status among Venetian masters. Works like The Wedding at Cana (1563) and The Feast in the House of Levi (1573) exemplify his signature blend of dramatic color, glittering pageantry, and majestic spatial invention.

A Divided Critical Inheritance

Despite his towering reputation among contemporaries, Veronese occupies a complex position in modern art criticism. He has consistently been praised for the chromatic brilliance of his palette, the sensibility of his brushwork, the aristocratic grace of his figures, and the sheer magnificence of his visual spectacles. Yet critics have also noted that his work tends to resist what they perceive as deeper emotional or spiritual expression — the profound, the human, the sublime. Among the great Venetian trio, he has frequently been the least favored by modern scholars. Nevertheless, his influence on subsequent painters is undeniable: Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo, Delacroix, and Renoir all rank among his admirers. A further complication for modern audiences is that the majority of his major works remain in their original settings in Venice and Verona, meaning that museum collections typically represent him through smaller portraits and works that do not fully capture the scale and splendor for which he is truly known.

Names, Lineage, and a Painter's Identity

The name Veronese itself tells a story. It derives simply from his birthplace, Verona, and was the kind of geographic or occupational surname common in the period — his father Gabriele was known as a spezapreda, a stonecutter. His mother Caterina, however, carried a more complicated pedigree: she was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman named Antonio Caliari. This maternal connection led the young Paolo to adopt the surname Caliari at an early stage; his earliest known signature reads P. Caliari F. After spending several years in Venice under the name Paolo Veronese, he resumed the Caliari signature around 1575. The distinction between Paolo Veronese and the later Alessandro Veronese — now identified as Alessandro Turchi — became necessary only in later centuries to avoid confusion. He died in Venice on 19 April 1588, leaving behind a body of work whose grandeur still defines the Venetian Late Renaissance.