Ceiling paintings

The fire in the Doges Palace in 1574 also destroyed the decoration in the Sala del Collegio. Restoration work commenced immediately, and Veronese was commissioned to do the ceiling paintings.

The picture shows paintings by Veronese in the gilt wooden ceiling of the Sala del Collegio.

The three central panels (Mars and Neptune; Faith and Religion; Venice Ruling with Justice and Peace) are surrounded by eight more canvases of alternating “T” and “L” shapes containing personifications of the Christian Virtues, interspersed on the longer sides by six more monochrome panels with Scenes from the Greek and Roman History. The allegorical program, the glorification of the “good governance” of the Venetian Republic, is clearly defined in the inscriptions that appear in the coffers next to the three biggest canvases: “Robur imperii” above Mars and Neptune, “Nunquam derelicta” and “Reipublicae fundamentum” above and below Faith and Religion and “Custodes libertatis” under Venice Ruling with Justice and Peace.

The eight figures of the Virtues can be identified by the attributes that accompany them: a dog for Fidelity, a lamb for Gentleness, an ermine for Purity, a die and a crown for Reward, an eagle for Moderation, a cobweb for Dialectics, a crane for Vigilance and a cornucopia for Prosperity. These sumptuous female figures dressed in silks and brocades, splendid in their precious and limpid decorative effects and wonderfully lustrous and transparent colours, almost cancel out the limits of the restricted space to which they are confined by their lavish gilded frames, for they are set against an architectural background that seems to extend from one panel to another, creating a marvelous unity of space. The three central panels on the contrary, though characterized by the same colorings as the individual figures, appear to be separate.