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The Supper at the house of Levi by Paolo Veronese

A last supper? It could look like...
This is generally what people think when they first see this enormous painting on canvas (5,60 m high per 13,09 m long) at the Accademia Gallery. Nevertheless, if you approch, you will soon see that many things are particularly strange to be a last Supper. Christ is sitting at the center of the table, Peter on his right, young John on his left, but the others? Where are the 12 apostles?The huge art work was painted by Veronese for the refectory of the convent of St. John and Paul (Venice), in 1573. As soon as it was placed on the wall, the work raised the attention of the Holy Office and Veronese was trialed for heresy. As a matter of fact, for Counter-reformation Venice that painting presented lots of inappropriate, insolent details. A dog on the foregroud, a cat playing behind Christ, a baffoon with a parrot, black servants, a nose-bleeding waiter, and… protestant soldiers drinking wine!Veronese, as can be read in the proceedings of his trial, justified this composition as the result of his imagination: painters are just like poets and foolish: they can use their imagination. (you can find a transcription here: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/renaissance-venice/late-renaissance-venice/a/transcript-of-the-trial-of-veronese). The Inquisition asked Veronese to make a few changes in the painting. He did not make a single one, he changed the title. He wrote on the baustrade that the scene was derived from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 5. It is the Feast at the house of Levi, a wealthy phareisee, that could have been like a luxurious Venetian party.
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