A THOUSAND WORDS
The Feast in the House of Levi
by Paolo Caliari (Veronese)
This 1573 painting is a whopper. For starts, it measures nearly fifty feet long by eighteen high. It is as if the curtain has gone up on a mighty operatic staging of the text from Luke 5:29, "And Levi made him a great feast in his house; and there was a large company of tax collectors and others sitting at table with them." Three huge arches like a Palladian theater frame the action, and what action it is. There are nearly fifty figures, among them turbaned Turks, African servants, a man with a nosebleed, well-heeled Venetians in colorful silks, German mercenaries, a little girl, a jester, a dwarf, a parrot, two dogs, and a cat.
What are we to make of all this? Most of the action takes place in the foreground, in front of the framing arches, up and down the two flanking staircases, and in the windows of the fantasy architecture behind the central space of the portico. Within the upper room, however, there is only the long table, Christ, his apostles, and a few servants. In the center, John turns to Christ, lips parted and hands upturned as if to ask him a question. Christ, tall and serious in the center of the arch, listens closely. Meanwhile, Judas, the uneasy figure in red, glances down toward the cat just emerging from under the table, while a servant at the right draws the attention of another apostle, perhaps Thomas, to the dog in the foreground.
Living Under an Assumed Name
Traditionally, the cat is a symbol of evil and the devil. The dog, on the other hand, symbolizes faith and fidelity. A much more likely interpretation of this central scene would be the moment at the Last Supper when John asks Jesus which of the twelve is his betrayer: Judas draws back and looks at the evil avatar of his misdeed, while Thomas realizes that his faith is about to be tested.
In fact, the original commission for the painting was for a Last Supper for the refectory of the Dominican Priory at Ss. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, to replace a Titian that had been destroyed by fire in 1571. The Last Supper was traditionally painted on refectory walls (think of Leonardo's in Milan) as an appropriate subject for meditation during meals. As the painting progressed, the prior seems to have grown uneasy with the riot of figures occupying all but the sacred central space, and he may have suggested to Veronese that he at least replace the dog with the figure of the Magdalene. Veronese gave him short shrift.
Everybody's a Critic
The prior was not alone. Veronese's musical comedy of supernumerary figures soon attracted the attention of the Inquisition, who called the painter before them to explain their lack of decorum. The transcript of the inquiry survives:
Question. Do you know the reasons why you have been called here?
Answer. No.
Q. Can you imagine what those reasons may be?
Mary Elizabeth Podles is the retired curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of A Thousand Words: Reflections on Art and Christianity (St. James Press, 2023). She and her husband Leon, a Touchstone senior editor, have six children and live in Baltimore, Maryland. She is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
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