Feast in the House of Levi (detail)

Commissioned by the Dominicans of SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, the painting gets its present title from the painter’s brush with the Venetian Inquisition. Individual figures and motifs had caused offense, so that accusations of heresy were voiced aloud during the cross-examination.

The original subject of the enigmatic picture is controversial. Veronese himself added to the confusion in no small measure by saying that it was “… a picture with the supper that Jesus Christ celebrated with his disciples in the house of Simon.”