BONIFACIO VERONESE

Shortly after Venice built the new wing of the Palazzo dei Camerlinghi, which housed the treasury, the city commissioned several artists, chief among them Bonifazio and Tintoretto, to decorate the palazzo. This arched canvas, executed for the palazzo, is the work of Bonifazio’s workshop.

Like Paris Bordone, Bonifacio Veronese fails to convey the spiritual complexity of the world of the Mannerists, but used their formulae as a means of renewing and developing his innate gifts as a narrator. Thus he exploited the sensuous richness of the range of colours derived from Palma il Vecchio in his dynamic formal articulations and complex perspective-spacial proposals which were inspired in particular by prints of paintings by Raphael and the Roman artists. The most inspired poetic achievement of the fascinating decorative liberty attained by Bonifacio Veronese in the course of the fourth decade of the sixteenth century is without doubt this representation of ‘Dives and Lazarus’ which is mentioned in 1660 by Boschini as hanging in Palazzo Giustiniani at San Stae.

The Gospel parable is here not used as a prompt for dramatic effects but rather for the discursive presentation of a civilized meeting in the discreet half-light of the portico of a country house of the time. The languorous abandon to the music displayed by the group in the foreground is not in the least disturbed by the presence of the beggar, Lazarus, nor yet by the sudden bursting in of the armed men taking refuge from the fire blazing in the distance on the right, while the left and centre of the picture depict the serene passing of time in country house life: the servants intent on their bread-making, the lovers at the entrance to the tree garden, the hunters resting against the wall of the building. In the light, mellowed by the melancholy, yearning reflections of sunset, the colours acquire a refined neo-Byzantine richness and seem to be reminiscent of the ‘courtly’ fables of Vittore Carpaccio.

This is the central part of the triptych, with flanking panels devoted to the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Annunciate, the whole of which once hung in the Camera degli Imprestidi (“Loan Office”) in the Palazzo dei Camerlinghi. Its mutilation and separation into three parts (the other two also at the Gallerie) took place at an uncertain date, but not before 1808, the year of an inventory identifying the work as still united.

The bird’s-eye view of the Piazza San Marco includes the Loggetta, which means that the painting could not have been executed before 1540, the year the Loggetta was finished.

The represented saints are Sts Francis, Anthony, Magdalen, John the Baptist, and Elizabeth.

Painted for the altar on the ground floor of the Tailors’ School near the Jesuit Church in Venice, the canvas depicts St Omobono, patron of tailors, whose great shears (on the pavement at the Saint’s feet) help to confirm the work’s original location. Flanking the Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist at the centre are St Barbara at the right and, on the left, St Omobono, the latter giving alms to a poor cripple. The date is inscribed in a cartouche just above the picture’s lower edge.

With a date of 1533, this is the earliest confirmed work by Bonifacio. Over and above the influence of Palma Vecchio and of Titian’s palette, it shows the artist to have been inspired by Mannerist doctrines, which are particularly evident in the treatment of the Saint and of the beggar holding his bowl.

Canvas paintings of this type were placed over wooden paneling or set in voluminous pieces of furniture like bedsteads. Bonifacio’s studio was involved in this line of production.

Canvas paintings of this type were placed over wooden paneling or set in voluminous pieces of furniture like bedsteads. Bonifacio’s studio was involved in this line of production.

The soft shape of the face, the rhythm of rounded lines forming a simple balanced composition, the man’s thoughtful look seemingly detached from earthly realities - these elements speak of the influence of Giorgione, who ruled the minds of Venetian artists in the first half of the 16th century. This portrait, one of the few painted by Bonifacio Veronese, was formerly attributed to Vincenzo Catena, Giovanni Cariani, Lorenzo Lotto, and others.

The represented figures in this sacred conversation are Constantine, St Helen, and the young St John. Helen, Constantine’s mother, found the Cross and nails of the Crucifixion.

Bonifacio Veronese produced animated paintings for private clients in which biblical themes were merely a pretext for depicting the banquets or musical entertainments of the Venetian nobility. He also produced religious works for churches. Even the depiction of this vigorous struggle between St Michael and the devil remains poised and harmoniously composed, although this entails some loss of expressive force.

The Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary was destroyed by fire in 1867. The restored chapel was reopened only in 1959. It is now decorated with many 16th-17th-century paintings originated from other Venetian churches and collections. Bonifacio’s painting belongs to this decoration.

This painting and The Feast of Dives (Accademia, Venice) are considered Bonifacio’s masterpieces. He has used the subject as an excuse to paint an open-air holiday scene, in which the luxuriousness of the clothes melts into the opulent landscape dotted with little genre scenes. In overall decorative effect, the painting is much like a tapestry. Bonifacio’s sources of inspiration include Titian and Dosso, with some influence from northern European painters.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 5 minutes):

Gioacchino Rossini: Moses, Moses’ Prayer

The painting is probably the work of the artist’s studio.

In the background, the painting contrasts the dying pagan world with the new City of God, here celebrated in the guise of Venice. The represented saints in the foreground are Catherine, Peter, John the Baptist, and Jerome.