Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/193

Rh a native of Verona, who was at first a friar in the monastery of S. Maria in Organo. He rose to great celebrity as an architect, and designed many graceful and richly sculptured buildings in Venice, Rome, and even in France ; he used classical forms with great taste and skill, and with much of the freedom of the older mediaeval architects, and was specially remarkable for his rich and delicate sculptured decorations. The Roman gateway of Gallienus (men tioned below) supplied a special form of window, with a circular arch on pilasters, surmounted by a cornice ; this was copied by Fra Giocondo, and has been used by countless architects down to the present day without any alteration whatever, 1 a remarkable his tory for a design : it was invented in the 3d century, revived in the 15th, and again copied in the 19th. Another of the leading architects of the next stage of the Renaissance was the Veronese Michele SAXMICHELE (q.v.), a great military engineer, and designer of an immense number of magnificent palaces in Verona and other cities of Venetia. His buildings are stately and graceful in pro portion, but show a tendency towards that dull scholastic classicism which in the hands of Palladio put an end to all real life in the art. History. History. Nothing is certainly known of the history of Verona until it became a Roman colony with the title of Augusta, together with the rest of Venetia (Tac., Hist., iii. 8, and Strabo, p. 213). Its fertile surroundings, its central position at the junction of several great roads, and the natural strength of its position, de fended by a river along two-thirds of its circumference, all com bined to make Verona one of the richest and most important cities in northern Italy, although its extent within the walls was not large. The existing remains of wall and gates are shown by in scriptions on them to date from the 3d century ; the ancient fossa still exists as an open canal, so that the old part of the city is wholly surrounded by water. One very handsome gateway inside the Roman city, now called the Porta de Borsari, was restored in 265 by Gallienus. There are, however, traces of a more ancient circuit wall and gates on the old line. The emperor Constantino, while advancing towards Rome from Gaul, besieged and took Verona (312) ; it was here, too, that Odoacer was defeated (489) by Theodoric the Goth, who built a palace at Verona and frequently resided there. Verona was the birthplace of Catullus. In the Middle Ages Verona gradually grew in size and import ance. In early times it was one of the chief residences of the Lombard kings ;- and, though, like other cities of northern Italy, it suffered much during the Guelf and Ghibelline struggles, it rose to a foremost position both from the political and the artistic point of view under its rulers of the Scaliger and Delia Scala families. The first prominent member of the latter family and founder of his dynasty was Martino I., who ruled over the city from 1260 till his death in 1277. Verona had previously fallen under the power of a less able despot, Ezzelino da Romano, who died in 1259. Alberto della Scala (died in 1301) was succeeded by his eldest son Bartolomeo, who was confirmed as ruler of Verona by the popular vote, and died in 1304. Alboino, the second son, succeeded his brother, and died in 1311, when the youngest son of Alberto, Can Grande, who since 1308 had been joint-lord of Verona with his brother, succeeded to the undivided power. Can Grande (Francesco della Scala, died in 1329) was the best and most illustrious of his line, and is specially famous as the hospitable patron of DAXTE (q.v.). Other princes of this dynasty, which lasted for rather more than a century, were Giovanni (d. 1350), Martino II. (d. 1351), Can Grande II. (d. 1359), and Can Signorio (d. 1375). In 1389 Gian Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan, became by conquest lord of Verona. Soon after his death the city fell by treacherous means into the hands of Francesco II. di Carrara, lord of Padua. In 1404-5, Verona, together with Padua, was finally conquered by Venice, and remained subject to the Venetians till the overthrow of the republic by Napoleon in 1797, who in the same year, after the treaty of Campo Formic, ceded it to the Austrians with the rest of Venetia ; and since that time its political history has been linked to that of Venice. See the various works by Scipione Maflei (Verona Illustrata, 1728; Museum Vvronense, 1749; and La Antica Condition di Verona, 1719); also Panvinius, Antiquitates Veronm, Padua, ItiCS ; Da Pertico, Descrizinne di Verona, 1S20 ; and for some of the older buildings Street, Brick and Marble Architecture, London, 1SS5. (J. H. M.) VERONESE, PAOLO (1528-1588), the name ordinarily given to PAOLO CALIARI, or CAGLIARI, the latest of the great cycle of painters of the Venetian school, was born in Verona in 1528 according to the best authorities (Zan- etti and others), or in 1532 according to Ridolfi. His father, Gabriele Caliari, a sculptor, began to train Paolo to his own profession. The boy, however, showed more propensity to painting, and was therefore transferred to 1 As, for example, in Sir Gilbert Scott s Government offices, White hall, and many other recent buildings in London. - Verona is the &quot; Bern &quot; of early German legendary history, and of the poems which celebrate the achievements of Charlemagne. 173 his uncle, the painter Antonio Badile. According to Vasari, he was the pupil of Giovanni Carotto, a painter proficient in architecture and perspective ; this statement remains unconfirmed. Paolo, in his early years, applied himself to co} tying from the engravings of Albert Diirer and the drawings of Parmigiano ; and, having in a singular degree the gifts of facility, retentiveness, and amenity, he made rapid progress. He did some work in Verona, but found there little outlet for his abilities, the field being pretty well occupied by Ligozzi, Brusasorci, Battista dal Moro, Paolo Farinato, Domenico Riccio, and other artists. Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga took him, when barely past twenty years of age, to Mantua, along with the three last- named painters, to execute in the cathedral a picture of the Temptation of St Anthony ; here Caliari was considered to excel his competitors. Returning to Verona, he found himself exposed to some envy and ill-will. Hence he formed an artistic partnership with Battista Zelotti, and they painted together in the territories of Vicenza and Treviso. Finally Paolo went on to Venice. In this city his first pictures were executed in 1555 in the sacristy and church of St Sebastian, an uncle of his being prior of the monastery. The subjects on the vaulting are taken from the history of Esther ; and these excited so much admiration that thenceforward Caliari, aged about twenty- eight, ranked almost on a par with Tintoretto, aged about forty-five, or with Titian in his eightieth year, and his life became a series of triumphs. Besides the Esther subjects, these buildings contain his pictures of the Baptism of Christ, the Martyrdom of St Marcus and St Marcellinus, the Martyrdom of St Sebastian, &c. As regards this last- named work, there is a vague tradition that Caliari painted it at a time when he had taken refuge in the monastery, for some reason now unknown. He entered into a com petition for painting the ceiling of the library of St Mark, and not only obtained the commission but executed it with so much power that his very rivals voted him the golden chain which had been tendered as an honorary distinction. At one time he returned to Verona, and painted the Banquet in the House of Simon the Pharisee, with Jesus and Mary Magdalene, for the refectory of St Mazzaro, a picture now in Turin. In 1560, however, he was in Venice again, working partly in the St Sebastian buildings and partly in the ducal palace. He visited Rome in 1563, in the suite of Girolamo Grimani, the Venetian ambassador, and acquired enhanced elevation of style by studying the works of Raphael and Michelangelo, and especially the antique. Returning to Venice, he was overwhelmed with commissions, almost transcending the resources even of his own marvellous assiduity, fertility, and promptitude, qualities in which no painter perhaps has ever surpassed him. He was compelled to decline an invitation from Philip II. to go to Spain and assist in decorating the Escorial. One of his pictures of this period is the famous Venice, Queen of the Sea, in the ducal palace. He died in Venice on the 20th (or perhaps 19th) of April 1588, and was buried in the church of St Sebastian, a monument being set up to him there by his two sons, Gabriele and Carlo, and his brother, Benedetto, all of them painters. Beyond his magnificent performances as a painter, the known incidents in the life of Paul Veronese are (as will be perceived from the above account) very few. That he was prosperous is certain, and that he was happy is an almost necessary inference from the character of his pictures, on which the joy of living is inefl aceably stamped. He was honoured and loved, being kind, amiable, gener ous, and an excellent father. His person is well known from the portraits left by himself and others: he was a dark man, rather good-looking than otherwise, somewhat bald in early middle age, and with nothing to mark an exceptional energy or turn of char acter. In his works the first quality which strikes one is the palatial splendour grand architecture, stately vistas, personages of easy and affable dignity in sumptuous costumes, the crowded assemblies,