Feast in the House of Levi: A Last Supper

Paolo Caliari, Il Veronese
Italian, Venetian, 1528-1588
Feast in the House of Levi 1573,
Galleria della Academia, Venice

In 1573 Veronese was commissioned to paint a Last Supper for the refectory of the Dominican convent of San Giovanni e Paolo in Venice.

The painting measures 13 metres wide and has fully life-size figures which are integrated into a festive Venetian scene, and includes 52 people including dogs, a cat, a jester with a parrot, a servant slyly drinking wine on the stairways, and “fools, drunken Germans, dwarfs, and other follies”.

It broke several of the Tridentine rules: it did not follow scriptural accounts accurately, there were unnecessary figures, and the action and poses were confusing

On July 18, 1573, he was called before the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition in Venice because certain details in the work were considered irreverent in its treatment of a religious theme. The indictment was heresy.

A transcript of the proceedings is produced in the Note below.

He tried various defences: artistic and poetic licence- "We painters use the same license as poets and madmen, and I represented those halberdiers, the one drinking, the other eating at the foot of the stairs, but both ready to do their duty, because it seemed to me suitable and possible that the master of the house, who as I have been told was rich and magnificent, would have such servants."

When Veronese attempted to cite the example of Michelangelo`s Last Judgment, The Inquisitors pointed out that in Michelangelo's Last Judgment there were no such 'drunkards nor dogs nor similar buffooneries' as Veronese had painted. He answered: 'Mine is no art of thought; my art is joyous and praises God in light and colour.'

But Veronese, realising that he was not going to win before the Tribunal, bowed to the storm, and said that he could not defend his conduct-that he had not considered all these things that were now so clearly put before him and calmly evaded all promise to change his ways.

To his profound surprise, he was told that he was free, but that he must paint out the dog, paint the Magdalene in its place, and blot out the German soldiers, within three months' time.

Once outside and not wishing to yield to the injunction of the Inquisition to eliminate the details which offended the religious theme of the Last Supper, he changed the title to "Feast in the House of Levi", a subject which tolerated the presence of fools and armed men dressed up "alla tedesca". He did not make any other changes.

It was fortunate for Veronese that he was being tried in Venice. There, the civil authorities had curbed the Inquisition's powers.


Further references:

Jana Bennett
BBC Director of Television
Letting artistic merit speak for itself - The Founder's Dinner, St Anne's College, Oxford
Monday 28 February 2005
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/speeches/stories/bennett_oxford.shtml

Research Reports III —
Depicting Demons: Counter-Reformation Restraints and Baroque Representations
Hilaire Kallendorf, Texas A&M University
(no. 37, Spring 2001)
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/c1718cs/Nltr37.htm#Kallendorf

Splendid hedonism: Peter Humfrey reviews an exhibition of Veronese's secular art, which transfers from Paris to Venice later this month.(Paolo Veronese)
From: Apollo :Date: 2/1/2005 Author: Humfrey, Peter
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-128792211.html


NOTE:

Veronese before the Inquisition
Report of the sitting of the Tribunal of the Inquisition on Saturday, 18th July, 1573

This is Charles Yriarte's translation from Italian, published, among other places in Francis Marion Crawford's Salve Venetia, New York, 1905. Vol. II: 29-34.


This day, July Eighteenth, 1573. Called to the Holy Office before the sacred tribunal, Paolo Galliari Veronese residing in the parish of Saint Samuel, and being asked as to his name and surname replied as above.

Being asked his profession:
Answer. I paint and make figures.

Question. Do you know the reasons why you have been called here?
A. No.

Q. Can you imagine what those reasons may be?
A. I can well imagine.

Q. Say what you think about them.
A. I fancy that it concerns what was said to me by the reverend fathers, or rather by the prior of the monastery of San Giovanni e Paolo, whose name I did not know, but who informed me that he had been here, and that your Most Illustrious Lordships had ordered him to cause to be placed in the picture a Magdalen instead of the dog; and I answered him that very readily I would do all that was needful for my reputation and for the honor of the picture; but that I did not understand what this figure of the Magdalen could be doing here; and this for many reasons, which I will tell, when occasion is granted me to speak.

Q. What is the picture to which you have been referring?
A. It is the picture which represents the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with His disciples in the house of Simon.

Q. Where is this picture?
A. In the refectory of the monks of San Giovanni e Paolo.

Q. Is it painted in fresco or on wood or on canvas?
A. It is on canvas.

Q. How many feet does it measure in height?
A. It may measure seventeen feet.

Q. And in breadth?
A. About thirty-nine.

Q. How many have you represented? And what is each one doing?
A. First there is the innkeeper, Simon; then, under him, a carving squire whom I supposed to have come there for his pleasure, to see how the service of the table is managed. There are many other figures which I cannot remember, however, as it is a long time since I painted that picture.

Q. How you painted other Last Suppers besides that one?
A. Yes.

Q. How many have you painted? Where are they?
A. I painted one at Verona for the reverend monks of San Lazzaro; it is in their refectory. Another is in the refectory of the reverend brothers of San Giorgio here in Venice.

Q. But that one is not a Last Supper, and is not even called the Supper of Our Lord.
A. I painted another in the refectory of San Sebastiano in Venice, another at Padua for the Fathers of the Maddalena. I do not remember to have made any others.

Q. In this Supper which you painted for San Giovanni e Paolo, what signifies the figure of him whose nose is bleeding?
A. He is a servant who has a nose-bleed from some accident.

Q. What signify those armed men dressed in the fashion of Germany, with halberds in their hands?
A. It is necessary here that I should say a score of words.

Q. Say them.
A. We painters use the same license as poets and madmen, and I represented those halberdiers, the one drinking, the other eating at the foot of the stairs, but both ready to do their duty, because it seemed to me suitable and possible that the master of the house, who as I have been told was rich and magnificent, would have such servants.

Q. And the one who is dressed as a jester with a parrot on his wrist, why did you put him into the picture?
A. He is there as an ornament, as it is usual to insert such figures.

Q. Who are the persons at the table of Our Lord?
A. The twelve apostles.

Q. What is Saint Peter doing, who is the first?
A. He is carving the lamb in order to pass it to the other part of the table.

Q. What is he doing who comes next?
A. He holds a plate to see what Saint Peter will give him.

Q. Tell us what the third is doing.
A. He is picking his teeth with a fork.

Q. And who are really the persons whom you admit to have been present at this Supper?
A. I believe that there was only Christ and His Apostles; but when I have some space left over in a picture I adorn it with figures of my own invention.

Q. Did some person order you to paint Germans, buffoons, and other similar figures in this picture?
A. No, but I was commissioned to adorn it as I thought proper; now it is very large and can contain many figures.

Q. Should not the ornaments which you were accustomed to paint in pictures be suitable and in direct relation to the subject, or are they left to your fancy, quite without discretion or reason?
A. I paint my pictures with all the considerations which are natural to my intelligence, and according as my intelligence understands them.

Q. Does it seem suitable to you, in the Last Supper of our Lord, to represent buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs, and other such absurdities?
A. Certainly not.

Q. Then why have you done it?
A. I did it on the supposition that those people were outside the room in which the Supper was taking place.

Q. Do you not know that in Germany and other countries infested by heresy, it is habitual, by means of pictures full of absurdities, to vilify and turn to ridicule the things of the Holy Catholic Church, in order to teach false doctrine to ignorant people who have no common sense?
A. I agree that it is wrong, but I repeat what I have said, that it is my duty to follow the examples given me by my masters.

Q. Well, what did your masters paint? Things of this kind, perhaps?
A. In Rome, in the Pope's Chapel, Michelangelo has represented Our Lord, His Mother, St. John, St. Peter, and the celestial court; and he has represented all these personages nude, including the Virgin Mary, and in various attitudes not inspired by the most profound religious feeling.

Q. Do you not understand that in representing the Last Judgment, in which it is a mistake to suppose that clothes are worn, there was no reason for painting any? But in these figures what is there that is not inspired by the Holy Spirit? There are neither buffoons, dogs, weapons, nor other absurdities. Do you think, therefore, according to this or that view, that you did well in so painting your picture, and will you try to prove that it is a good and decent thing?
A. No, my most Illustrious Sirs; I do not pretend to prove it, but I had not thought that I was doing wrong; I had never taken so many things into consideration. I had been far from imaging such a great disorder, all the more as I had placed these buffoons outside the room in which Our Lord was sitting.

These things having been said, the judges pronounced that the aforesaid Paolo should be obliged to correct his picture within the space of three months from the date of the reprimand, according to the judgments and decision of the Sacred Court, and altogether at the expense of the said Paolo.

"Et ita decreverunt omni melius modo." (And so they decided everything for the best!)

Crawford observed: "The existing picture proves that Veronese paid no attention to the recommendations of the Court, for I find that it contains every figure referred to."