Nevertheless, Veronese was not a native of Venice but of Verona, as is indicated by the surname that was bestowed upon him during his life and that has adhered to him ever since. His rightful name was Paolo Caliari. He was born at Verona in 1528 and not in 1530, as is asserted by several of his biographers, notably by Carlo Ridolfi. The correct date is now verified by the discovery, in San Samuele of Venice, Veronese's parish church, of the register of deaths wherein the decease of the great painter is entered as having occurred the 19th of April, 1588, the very day when he completed his sixtieth year. Paolo Caliari belonged to a family of artists. His father, Gabriele Caliari, was a sculptor and enjoyed some little reputation in his own city. Veronese's uncle, Antonio Badile, was a painter, and in such pictures as are known to be his we find evidence not only of a good deal of ability, but of a certain facile grace that justifies the high esteem in which his compatriots held him. Veronese's father, being of a logical turn of mind, wished, since he himself was a sculptor, to make a sculptor of his son. Veronese learned to model statuettes in clay, and, aided by his precocious intelligence, he acquired a real dexterity in this art, quite remarkable in one so young. But this was not his vocation. Frequent visits to the studio of his uncle Badile had awakened in him an enthusiasm for painting. He applied himself to learn to paint with so much zeal and imagination that his father made no attempt to check his inclination, but entrusted him to Badile. The latter was Veronese's real teacher, though not the only one, for young "Paolino" also attended the studio of another Veronese painter, Giovanni Carotto. From the outset, Veronese applied himself energetically to perfecting his skill in line drawing. The future genial painter of wondrous fantasy yielded himself without a murmur to the rude but salutary exigencies of technique. Strange caprice on the part of an artist who was destined to show so much dexterity in execution and lavishness in decoration, his tastes turned towards the most severe and least imaginative of masters, Albert Durer and Lucas Van Leyden. It was through copying the engravings of these illustrious masters that he learned how to draw. Such lessons always bear their fruit. In this laborious apprenticeship, Veronese acquired that steadiness of hand, that firmness of line that was later to be noted even in his most exuberant paintings, despite the enormous quantity of canvases that he produced in the course of his life.