The Feast in the House of Levi

The Feast in the House of Levi, Paolo Veronese, 1573, Oil on canvas

The Feast in the House of Levi or Christ 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 rear wall of the refectory of the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, a Dominican friary, 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 less doctrinally central, and one in which the Gospels specified "sinners" as present. After this, no more was said.^[2]

Subject

Saints Peter and John flank Christ, with Judas the uneasy figure in red

The painting depicts a banquet scene in which the tall figure of Christ is depicted in the centre dressed in a shimmering pale green robe while the surrounding people interact in a turbulence of polychromatic splendour in a diverse range of different positions and poses. The feast is framed by the great pillars and archways of a portico and a staircase to the right.

The revised title refers to an episode in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 5, in which Jesus is invited to a banquet:

And Levi made himself a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of tax collectors and of others that sat down with them. But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Veronese's evidence

Images on the right show the first two of the five-page transcript of Paolo Veronese's evidence from July 1573.^[3] This English translation by Charles Yriarte from the Italian is taken from Francis Marion Crawford's Salve Venetia (New York, 1905. Vol. II: 29-34):^[1]

Cover of Veronese Inquisition Transcript from 1573

Transcript of Veronese Inquisition page1

This day, July eighteenth, 1573. Called to the Holy Office before the sacred tribunal, Paolo Galliari Veronese residing in the parish of Saint Samuel, and being asked as to his name and surname replied as above.

Being asked as to his profession:
Answer. I paint and make figures.
Question. Do you know the reasons why you have been called here?
A. No.
Q. Can you imagine what those reasons may be?
A. I can well imagine.
Q. Say what you think about them.
A. I fancy that it concerns what was said to me by the reverend fathers, or rather by the prior of the monastery of San Giovanni e Paolo, whose name I did not know, but who informed me that he had been here, and that your Most Illustrious Lordships had ordered him to cause to be placed in the picture a Magdalen instead of the dog; and I answered him that very readily I would do all that was needful for my reputation and for the honor of the picture; but that I did not understand what this figure of the Magdalen could be doing here; and this for many reasons, which I will tell, when occasion is granted me to speak.
Q. What is the picture to which you have been referring?
A. It is the picture which represents the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with His disciples in the house of Simon.
Q. Where is this picture?
A. In the refectory of the monks of San Giovanni e Paolo.
Q. Is it painted in fresco or on wood or on canvas?
A. It is on canvas.
Q. How many feet does it measure in height?
A. It may measure seventeen feet.
Q. And in breadth?
A. About thirty-nine.
Q. How many have you represented? And what is each one doing?
A. First there is the innkeeper, Simon; then, under him, a carving squire whom I supposed to have come there for his pleasure, to see how the service of the table is managed. There are many other figures which I cannot remember, however, as it is a long time since I painted that picture.
Q. How you painted other Last Suppers besides that one?
A. Yes.
Q. How many have you painted? Where are they?
A. I painted one at Verona for the reverend monks of San Lazzaro; it is in their refectory. Another is in the refectory of the reverend brothers of San Giorgio here in Venice.
Q. But that one is not a Last Supper, and is not even called the Supper of Our Lord.
A. I painted another in the refectory of San Sebastiano in Venice, another at Padua for the Fathers of the Maddalena. I do not remember to have made any others.
Q. In this Supper which you painted for San Giovanni e Paolo, what signifies the figure of him whose nose is bleeding?
A. He is a servant who has a nose-bleed from some accident.
Q. What signify those armed men dressed in the fashion of Germany, with halberds in their hands?
A. It is necessary here that I should say a score of words.
Q. Say them.
A. We painters use the same license as poets and madmen, and I represented those halberdiers, the one drinking, the other eating at the foot of the stairs, but both ready to do their duty, because it seemed to me suitable and possible that the master of the house, who as I have been told was rich and magnificent, would have such servants.
Q. And the one who is dressed as a jester with a parrot on his wrist, why did you put him into the picture?
A. He is there as an ornament, as it is usual to insert such figures.
Q. Who are the persons at the table of Our Lord?
A. The twelve apostles.
Q. What is Saint Peter doing, who is the first?
A. He is carving the lamb in order to pass it to the other part of the table.
Q. What is he doing who comes next?
A. He holds a plate to see what Saint Peter will give him.
Q. Tell us what the third is doing.
A. He is picking his teeth with a fork.
Q. And who are really the persons whom you admit to have been present at this Supper?
A. I believe that there was only Christ and His Apostles; but when I have some space left over in a picture I adorn it with figures of my own invention.
Q. Did some person order you to paint Germans, buffoons, and other similar figures in this picture?
A. No, but I was commissioned to adorn it as I thought proper; now it is very large and can contain many figures.
Q. Should not the ornaments which you were accustomed to paint in pictures be suitable and in direct relation to the subject, or are they left to your fancy, quite without discretion or reason?
A. I paint my pictures with all the considerations which are natural to my intelligence, and according as my intelligence understands them.

External video

Veronese's Feast in the House of Levi, Smarthistory[4]

Q. Does it seem suitable to you, in the Last Supper of our Lord, to represent buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs, and other such absurdities?
A. Certainly not.
Q. Then why have you done it?
A. I did it on the supposition that those people were outside the room in which the Supper was taking place.
Q. Do you not know that in Germany and other countries infested by heresy, it is habitual, by means of pictures full of absurdities, to vilify and turn to ridicule the things of the Holy Catholic Church, in order to teach false doctrine to ignorant people who have no common sense?
A. I agree that it is wrong, but I repeat what I have said, that it is my duty to follow the examples given me by my masters.
Q. Well, what did your masters paint? Things of this kind, perhaps?
A. In Rome, in the Pope's Chapel, Michelangelo has represented Our Lord, His Mother, St. John, St. Peter, and the celestial court; and he has represented all these personages nude, including the Virgin Mary, and in various attitudes not inspired by the most profound religious feeling.
Q. Do you not understand that in representing the Last Judgment, in which it is a mistake to suppose that clothes are worn, there was no reason for painting any? But in these figures what is there that is not inspired by the Holy Spirit? There are neither buffoons, dogs, weapons, nor other absurdities. Do you think, therefore, according to this or that view, that you did well in so painting your picture, and will you try to prove that it is a good and decent thing?
A. No, my most Illustrious Sirs; I do not pretend to prove it, but I had not thought that I was doing wrong; I had never taken so many things into consideration. I had been far from imaging such a great disorder, all the more as I had placed these buffoons outside the room in which Our Lord was sitting.

These things having been said, the judges pronounced that the aforesaid Paolo should be obliged to correct his picture within the space of three months from the date of the reprimand, according to the judgments and decision of the Sacred Court, and altogether at the expense of the said Paolo.

'Et ita decreverunt omni melius modo.' (And so they decided everything for the best!)" ^[5]

In popular culture

Monty Python's sketch 28 disciples or The Last Supper about why Michelangelo didn't paint the Last Supper was based on this historic painting. In the sketch, the artist optimistically offers to solve the difficulty by retitling his work The Penultimate Supper.

References

Further reading

• Norman Land, "Poetic License" in The Potted Tree: Essays in Venetian Art, Camden House, 1994, 57-70.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Feast in the House of Levi by Paolo Veronese.

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