When the Academy was instituted in 1755, Tiepolo was appointed its first director, but the sort of employment it provided was not suited to his impetuous spirit, and in 1762 he threw up the post and went off to Spain with his two sons. There he received a splendid welcome and was loaded with commissions, the only dissentient voice being that of Raphael Mengs, who, obsessed by the taste for the classic and the antique, was fiercely opposed to the Venetian's art. Tiepolo died suddenly in Madrid in 1770, pencil in hand. Though he was past seventy, the frescoes he has left there show that his hand was as firm and his eye as sure as ever. His frescoes have, as we have said, that frankly theatrical flavour which corresponds exactly to the taste of the time. Such works as the "Transportation of the Holy House of Loretto" in the Church of the Scalzi in Venice, or the "Triumph of Faith" in that of the Pietà, the "Triumph of Hercules" in Palazzo Canossa in Verona, or the decorations in the magnificent villa of the Pisani at Strà, are extravagant and fantastic, yet have the impressive quality of genius. These last, which have for subject the glorification of the Pisani, are full of portraits. The patrician sons and daughters appear, surrounded by Abundance, War, and Wisdom. A woman holding a sceptre symbolises Europe. All round are grouped flags and dragons, "nations grappling in the airy blue," bands of Red Indians in their war-paint and happy couples making love. The idea of the history, the wealth, the supreme dignity of the House is paramount, and over all appears Fame, bearing the noble name into immortality. In Palazzo Clerici at Milan a rich and prodigal committee gave the painter a free hand, and on the ceiling of a vast hall the Sun in a chariot, with four horses harnessed abreast, rises to the meridian, flooding the world with light. Venus and Saturn attend him, and his advent is heralded by Mercury. A symbolical figure of the earth joys at his coming, and a concourse of naiads, nymphs, and dolphins wait upon his footsteps. In the school of the Carmine in Venice Tiepolo has left one of his grandest displays. The haughty Queen of Heaven, who is his ideal of the Virgin, bears the Child lightly on her arm, and, standing enthroned upon the rolling clouds, hardly deigns to acknowledge the homage of the prostrate saint, on whom an attendant angel is bestowing her scapulary. The most charming _amoretti_ are disporting in all directions, flinging themselves from on high in delicious _abandon_, alternating with lovely groups of the cardinal virtues. At Villa Valmarana near Vicenza, after revelling among the gods, he comes to earth and delights in painting lovely ladies with almond eyes and carnation cheeks, attended by their cavaliers, seated in balconies, looking on at a play, or dancing minuets, and carnival scenes with masques and dominoes and _fêtes champêtres_, which give us a picture of the fashions and manners of the day.