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Paolo Veronese’s Art of Business: Painting, Investment, and the Studio as Social Nexus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John Garton
John Garton*
Affiliation:
Clark University
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Abstract

Despite the prominent career of Paolo (Caliari) Veronese (1528–88), much remains to be discovered about his patrons and peers. Several letters written by the artist are presented here for the first time, and their recipient is identified as the humanist Marcantonio Gandino. The letters reference artworks, visitors to Veronese’s studio, and economic data pertaining to the painter. Analyzing the correspondence from a variety of methodological viewpoints reveals how Veronese fulfilled commissions, interacted with nobility, and invested his painterly profits in land on the Venetian terraferma. In addition to promoting Veronese’s career and advising on financial matters, Gandino translated Plutarch and Xenophon, whose texts share classical subjects and content with Veronese’s paintings. The comparison of texts and images leaves open the possibility of an exchange between the writer and painter concerning matters of classical motifs.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , Fall 2012 , pp. 753 - 808
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Renaissance Society of America

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Footnotes

*

A grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, New York, in 2008 made this research possible. In the transcription and translation of these letters, I have benefitted from the advice of Federica Ambrosini, Patrizia Bortolozzo, Giovanni Caniato, Marina Coslovi, Liliana Leopardi, Paola Modesti, and especially Silvia Bottinelli, who was Visiting Professor at Clark University in 2010. I also thank Julia DeLancey, Edward Olszewski, and Kristina Wilson for their expertise and editing. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

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