_)]

In 1564 he accompanied Girolamo Grimani, procurator of St. Mark's, who
was appointed ambassador to the Holy See, and for the first time saw the
works of Raphael and Michelangelo and the treasures of antiquity. For
a time, the sight of the antique had some effect upon his work; in his
famous ceiling in the Louvre, "Jupiter destroying the Vices," the
influence of Michelangelo is apparent and its large gestures are
inspired by sculpture. Ridolfi says that Veronese brought home casts
from Rome, and statues of Amazons and the Laocoon seem to have inspired
the Jupiter. He did not go on long in this path; he does not really care
for the nude--it is too simple for him. He prefers that his saints and
divinities should appear in the gorgeous costumes of the day, and that
his Venus and Diana and the nymphs should trail in rich brocades. But
few documents are left concerning his work for the Ducal Palace up to
1576; much of it was destroyed in the great fire, but the Signoria then
gave him a number of fresh commissions. The most important was the
immense oval of the "Triumph of Venice," or, as it is sometimes called,
the "Thanksgiving for Lepanto"; the Republic crowned by victory and
surrounded by allegorical figures, Glory, Peace, Happiness, Ceres, Juno
and the rest. The composition shows the utmost freedom: the fair Queen
leans back, surrounded by laughing patricians, who look up from their
balconies, as if they were attending a regatta on the Grand Canal. The
horses of the Free Companions, the soldiers who go afar to carry out the
will of the Republic, prance in a crowd of personages, each of whom
represents a town or colony of her domain. Like all Veronese's
creations, this will always be pre-eminently a picture of the sixteenth
century, dated by a thousand details of costume, architecture, and
armour. Venice, the Venice of Lepanto and the Venier, of Titian,
Aretino, and Veronese himself, makes a deep impression upon us, and
the artist reflects his age with sympathetic spontaneity.

Hardly a hall of the Ducal Palace but can show a canvas of Veronese or
the assistants by whom he was now surrounded. From time to time he
resumed the decorations of S. Sebastiano, and his incessant production
betrays no trace of fatigue or languor. The martyrdom of the saint is a
triumph of the beauty of the silhouette against a radiant sky. He goes
back to Verona and paints the "Martyrdom of St. George." He pours light
into it. The saints ope