| Artist | Paolo Veronese |
|---|---|
| Year | 1573 |
| Type | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 555 cm × 1280 cm (219 in × 500 in) |
| Location | Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |
The Feast in the House of Levi is a 1573 painting by Italian painter Paolo Veronese and one of the largest canvases of the 16th century measuring 555 x 1280 cm (18 x 42 feet). It is now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, in Venice. It was painted by Veronese for the Dominican order of SS. Giovanni Paolo as a Last Supper, to replace an earlier work by Titian destroyed in the fire of 1571.
However the painting led to an investigation by the Roman Catholic Inquisition. Veronese was called to answer for irreverence and indecorum, and the serious offence of heresy was mentioned. He was asked to explain why the painting contained "buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs and other such scurrilities" as well as extravagant costumes and settings, in what is indeed a fantasy version of a Venetian patrician feast.[1] Veronese was told that he must change his painting within a three month period; instead, he simply changed the title to The Feast in the House of Levi, still an episode from the Gospels, but a less doctrinally central one, and no more was said.[2]
The painting depicts a banquet scene in which the tall figure of Christ is depicted in the centre in a shimmering pale green robe and the surrounding people interact in a turbulence of polychromatic splendour at a whole diversity of different positions and poses. The feast is framed by the great pillars and archways of a portico and a staircase to the right.
Norman Land, "Poetic License" in The Potted Tree: Essays in Venetian Art (Camden House, 1994), 57-70.