802 wolfgang wolters
on the commitment of the painter to reproduce the literary tradition, or
the historia according to the respective texts. At the same time, painters
were entitled to use their imaginations in the more peripheral parts of
the work, as was antithetically formulated, to utilize the artistic liberties
of poesie. this allowed the use of pictures as documents of equal value
to literary texts and archival evidence, especially in the case of contro-
versial evaluations of the course of historical or imaginary events. Paolo
Veronese, who was well versed in questions of art theory, exploited these
deliberations before the tribunal of the inquisition, calling the criticized
elements in his Last Supper (Galleria dell’Accademia) ornamento and thus
releasing it from any connection to the text of biblical tradition and its
exegesis. the renaming of his painting to The Feast in the House of Levi
also testified to the possibility of selecting a similar pictorial construction
for different themes.
this construct, built with opposing forces and further differentiated by
its authors in intermediate steps (in this way a genere misto came into
being), is helpful in understanding some paintings; however, it cannot
explain those religious paintings which diverge from the compositional
conventions—for example, those of tintoretto. tintoretto postulated his
truths and opened the view to previously unseen dimensions of theologi-
cal tradition, be it texts or images. this is true for many of his paintings in
the Sala dell’Albergo of the Scuola Grande di San rocco or his Crucifixion
in S. cassiano. So, tintoretto was not utilizing “manneristic” compositional
techniques and thus adapting to fashionable influences during a limited
period of time; far more, his pictures are unique depictions marked by the
contemporary retellings of biblical stories with their very rich imagery.
Among such stories are those by Pietro Aretino and the transcriptions of
medieval texts (the popular volgarizzamenti) reset in Venice, such as the
Vita Jesu Christi by Ludolf of Saxony (1570). that tintoretto, and likewise
titian for a few years, believed he had to react to the attention received by
the provocative formal innovations of the likes of a Giovanni Antonio da
Pordenone by attempting to surpass his annoying competitors with their
own weapons—above all Herculean figures and mighty horses—belongs
to the chapter in Sartre’s Le sequestré de Venise devoted to tintoretto and
his unceasing competitiveness.
Paintings and sculptures by artists who, though rarely born in the metrop-
olis, resided there were particularly sought after in the Venetian realm (and
not exclusively on the terra firma). this was especially true of altars that
could be painted or sculpted in Venice and then shipped without too great
of an expenditure. Giovanni Bellini’s altar for S. Francesco in Pesaro (Museo