It is scarcely probable that Veronese could have painted so large a canvas--fourteen metres by seven--in the necessarily brief space of a friendly visit, or that he could have painted in his figures, which are all of them portraits, without the knowledge of the Pisani family. But the anecdote is so pretty that it is pleasant to accept it as true. It was a direct descendant of the Venetian Procurator, Count Victor Pisani, who sold the painting to England in 1857. THE DECORATION OF THE DUCAL PALACE In 1577 a violent conflagration destroyed the greater part of the Ducal Palace. In this disaster all the pictures perished with which Tintoretto, Horatio the son of Titian, and Veronese, had decorated it. Desiring to restore the palace promptly and give it a new splendour, the Senate appointed a committee, authorized to distribute orders among the painters and decorators of Venice. The competitors were numerous and eager to secure a chance to collaborate in so glorious an enterprise; and to this end they paid eager court to the committee. Veronese alone made no advances, being unwilling to appear solicitous. This dignified course was looked upon as excess of pride, and one day when Jacopo Contanari met him in the street he reproached him with it. Veronese replied that it was not his business to seek for honours but to be deserving of them, and that he had less skill in soliciting work than in executing it. [Illustration: PLATE VII.--THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE (In the Accademia delle Belle Arti, Venice) There is, perhaps, no other religious subject which has so often stimulated the inspiration of the great Italian painters. Veronese himself has treated the same scene several times. The painting here reproduced is considered, in view of the picturesqueness of its composition, the beauty of the faces, and the brilliance of the colouring, to be one of the best works of the illustrious artist.] But they could not exclude Veronese, whose fame had now become universal. Accordingly he was chosen with Tintoretto, and to them were added Francisco Bassano and the younger Palma. The Ducal Palace is therefore a sort of museum of the works of these masters, and forms the most brilliant collection of paintings relating to the public life and the glorification of Venice. Veronese was entrusted with the decoration of the great central oval of the ceiling, and the lateral panels. In these he painted the _Defence of Scutari_, the _Taking of Smyrna_, and the _Triumph of Venice_. This last named painting is considered by many as Veronese's crowning achievement.