His younger contemporary Veronese (Paolo Caliari), 1530-88, reverts to and develops to an even higher degree the warmer and more brilliant colour of the school. He is the unsurpassed interpreter of the festal pomp of Venetian society. Without possessing the elemental force of Tintoretto he is a more careful artist. How nobly and gently he could conceive, may be seen in the decoration of the church of S. Sebastiano, painted 1555-65, and in the marriage of St Catherine at the church of that name, his most tender and beautiful work. Of his well-known banquet compositions, the Accademia possesses the finest specimen, the Supper at the House of Levi, No. 203. In this magnificent painting, with its marvellous drawing and spacious architecture, the artist revels in his power of expressing the joy of man in the satisfaction of material existence. This glorification of the pomps and vanities of the world, painted for the refectory of the Dominican friars at S. Zanipolo, did, however, shock the Church, and the head of the Holy Office called on the Prior and severely criticised the picture. On the 8th of July 1573, Master Paolo Caliari was cited before the tribunal of the Inquisition. Being asked his profession, he answered, “I invent and draw figures.” The inquisitor objected to the absence of Mary Magdalene and ordered that she should be substituted for the dog in the foreground; to St Peter carving a lamb; to a fellow dressed like a buffoon, with a parrot on his wrist; to another using his fork as a toothpick, and other indecencies. The artist defended himself stoutly and was ordered to reform his picture within three months. Veronese substituted the name of Levi for that of Simon and altered no more. Veronese was a noted house decorator of his time. None of his work survives at Venice, but visitors to Castelfranco may by a short detour see in the Villa Giacomelli, near Maser, some of the artist’s best fresco work on the walls of a characteristic Palladian country-house. With the works of the Bassani we reach the beginnings of modern painting. They are moderns not only in their dominant love of landscape, but in their touching affection for lowly peasant life and for the flocks and herds of their native hills. The family consisted of Jacopo da Ponte (1510-92), the father, and his sons Francesco (1549-92) and Leandro (1558-1623). The Accademia has good examples of their work, but to appreciate fully these homely and sympathetic artists one must travel to their native city Bassano, in the beautiful hill country north of Venice. Palma Giovane, 1544-1628, son of Antonio Negretti and of Bonifazio’s niece Giulia, is the last in whom the great traditions faintly survive. Besides his pictures in the Accademia some of the best of his work may be seen in the Oratorio dei Crocifissi. The school is now decadent; its productions feeble and mannered.