and was commissioned in that year to paint a
_Coronation of the Virgin_ and other works in the church of S.
Sebastian. The _Martyrdom of S. Giustino_, now in the Uffizi, and the
_Madonna and Child_ in the Louvre are also among his earlier works. As
early as 1562 he was at work on the enormous _Feast at Cana_, now in the
Louvre, and a similar work at Dresden is of the same date. In 1564 he
went to Rome, where he studied the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. On
his return to Venice in

[Illustration: PLATE XVII.--TINTORETTO

ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON

_National Gallery, London_]

1565--after visiting Verona, where he painted in his parish church, and
also married--he was employed to decorate the Ducal Palace, but much of
his best work there was destroyed by fire. Two of his most important
works completed before 1573 are in the Academy at Venice, _The Battle of
Lepanto_ and the _Feast in the House of Levi_. In this last he incurred
strictures from the Inquisition more severe than those of Kugler upon
Tintoretto's _Last Supper_, and possibly with as much reason, it being
objected that the introduction of German soldiery, buffoons, and a
parrot was "irreligious." His _Family of Darius_, now in the National
Gallery, was one of his latest works.

Veronese, even more than Titian, whom in colouring he sought to emulate,
and Tintoretto, whom in this respect he certainly excelled, expresses
the spirit of the Venetians of his time--a powerful and noble race of
human beings, as Kugler calls them, elate with the consciousness of
existence, and in full enjoyment of all that renders earth attractive.
By the splendour of his colour, assisted by rich draperies and other
materials, by a very clear and transparent treatment of the shadows, he
infused a magic into his great canvases which surpasses almost all the
other masters of the Venetian School. Never had the pomp of colour, on a
large scale, been so exalted and glorified as in his works. This, his
peculiar quality, is most decidedly and grandly developed in scenes of
worldly splendour; he loved to paint festive subjects for the
refectories of rich convents, suggested of course from particular
passages in the Scriptures, but treated with the greatest freedom,
especially as regards the costume, which is always of his own time.
Instead, therefore, of any religious sentiment, we are presented with a
display of the most cheerful human scenes and the richest worldly
splendour. That wh