Veronese executes a theatrical series of supper…
December 1573 CE
Veronese executes a theatrical series of supper scenes for various monastic refectories in Venice and outlying areas.
The most famous of these is his highly secularized Feast in the House of the Levi, a forty-two-foot- (thirteen meters) wide painting of 1573 in which dozens of life-size figures populate a loggia that stretches in three open bays across the painting's width.
In the background, an elaborate perspective opens like a stage set onto a cloud-studded blue sky.
Christ and other familiar New Testament characters occupy the center, but the rest of the composition is crowded with exotic characters unmentioned in the biblical text.
This artistic license results in Veronese being summoned before the Inquisition to defend his work against charges that it lacked the requisite seriousness and piety for a depiction of the Last Supper.
Given three months to modify the composition, the painter elects to adopt the present title to indicate a less exalted theme.