In 1564 he accompanied Girolamo Grimani, procurator of St. Mark's, who was appointed ambassador to the Holy See, and for the first time saw the works of Raphael and Michelangelo and the treasures of antiquity. For a time, the sight of the antique had some effect upon his work; in his famous ceiling in the Louvre, "Jupiter destroying the Vices," the influence of Michelangelo is apparent and its large gestures are inspired by sculpture. Ridolfi says that Veronese brought home casts from Rome, and statues of Amazons and the Laocoon seem to have inspired the Jupiter. He did not go on long in this path; he does not really care for the nude--it is too simple for him. He prefers that his saints and divinities should appear in the gorgeous costumes of the day, and that his Venus and Diana and the nymphs should trail in rich brocades. But few documents are left concerning his work for the Ducal Palace up to 1576; much of it was destroyed in the great fire, but the Signoria then gave him a number of fresh commissions. The most important was the immense oval of the "Triumph of Venice," or, as it is sometimes called, the "Thanksgiving for Lepanto"; the Republic crowned by victory and surrounded by allegorical figures, Glory, Peace, Happiness, Ceres, Juno and the rest. The composition shows the utmost freedom: the fair Queen leans back, surrounded by laughing patricians, who look up from their balconies, as if they were attending a regatta on the Grand Canal. The horses of the Free Companions, the soldiers who go afar to carry out the will of the Republic, prance in a crowd of personages, each of whom represents a town or colony of her domain. Like all Veronese's creations, this will always be pre-eminently a picture of the sixteenth century, dated by a thousand details of costume, architecture, and armour. Venice, the Venice of Lepanto and the Venier, of Titian, Aretino, and Veronese himself, makes a deep impression upon us, and the artist reflects his age with sympathetic spontaneity.