to him by contemporaries, about one third survive, in-
cluding entremeses (farcical interludes) and autos (reli-
gious plays) as well as comedias (published 1604–47 in 25
volumes, with occasional additional volumes since). His
three-act verse plays draw on the widest possible range of
subject matter (Spanish history, legend, and balladry,
mythology, chivalric romance, Italian novelle, pastoral,
and biblical and religious literature). The plays often have
a comic subplot related to the main action, an unforeseen
dénouement, and characters not portrayed with deep real-
ism but with speech suited to their class; they are intended
as moral instruction as well as entertainment. Lope
brought to full development a number of stock characters
like the gracioso (comic servant). His formula for writing
plays was set forth in an ironic poem, Arte nuevo de hacer
comedias (New art of making comedies; c. 1607). The
theme of honor, he noted there, was particularly popular.
The capa y espada (cape and sword) type, with upper-class
characters and appropriate sword-play, forms the largest
group of his comedies. To mention but a few, his plays in-
clude El caballero de Olmedo, Fuenteovejuna, La discreta en-
amorada, El castigo sin venganza, and Peribáñez.
Almost equally prolific as a poet and adept in a num-
ber of genres, Lope wrote Petrarchan and religious son-
nets, ballads, poems in the elaborate style of GÓNGORA
(whom he attacked but imitated), and philosophical
works. His lyrics, collected by friends, were published in
La Vega del Parnaso (1637). He also wrote several epics
(La hermosura de Angélica, La Jerusalén conquistada, An-
dromeda, and La Dragontea, the last-named an attack on
Sir Francis Drake and the English) and a burlesque battle
of cats, La gatomaquia.
Further reading: Donald R. Larson, The Honor Plays
of Lope de Vega (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1978); Melveena McKendrick, Playing the King: Lope
de Vega and the Limits of Conformity (Boston, Mass. and
London: Tamesis, 2002); Robert R. Morrison, Lope de Vega
and the Comedia de Santos (New York: Peter Lang, 2000).
Vegio, Maffeo (1407–1458) Italian poet and humanist
Born at Lodi, he studied at Milan and Pavia before pub-
lishing (1427) his own 13th book of the Aeneid as testi-
mony to his admiration for VIRGIL. This supplement,
covering Aeneas’s death and deification and the subse-
quent greatness of Rome, remained an accepted part of the
text of the Aeneid for about 150 years. This made his rep-
utation and led to his appointment as secretary of briefs
and canon of St. Peter’s, Rome (1444). He taught poetry at
the university of Pavia and produced much Latin verse on
a variety of subjects, including mythology (The Golden
Fleece in four books), as well as epigrams and a poem on
the Vatican which gives a picture of the building before it
was demolished and reconstructed by Nicholas V. Vegio
also wrote the educational treatise De educatione liberorum
(1445–48).
Veleslavín, Daniel Adam of (1546–1599) Czech
humanist, printer, and historian
Veleslavín lived and worked in Prague, where he was a
professor at the Charles University until disqualified from
his post by marriage. His father-in-law ran the city’s major
publishing house, and under Veleslavín’s management
(from 1580) this press put out some important historical
compilations and dictionaries. Several of these were Ve-
leslavín’s own work, including Silva quadrilinguis (1598),
a multilingual dictionary reflecting the international cul-
ture of contemporary Prague. Veleslavín’s own prose style
was much admired and imitated.Venetian Academy See NEAKADEMIAVenetian school During the Renaissance, those painters
working in or near Venice whose art evolved in a manner
distinct from that of other northern Italian towns in the
15th century. The movement away from the prevailing
Byzantine and Gothic modes began with the Bellini family,
in particular with Giovanni BELLINI, who had numerous
disciples. The prolific VIVARINIworkshop at Murano was
also significant in establishing the separate identity of
Venetian painting, while another Venetian characteristic,
the depiction of landscape and townscape, surfaces in the
work of CARPACCIO.
With GIORGIONE and TITIAN Venetian painting
reached its apogee, and artists even from northern Europe
came to Venice to study there. The quality that above all
distinguished Venetian art of the Cinquecento was its
warmth and richness of color, which these two painters
exemplified to an extraordinary degree. Other Venetian
masters included PALMA VECCHIO, Paolo VERONESE, and
TINTORETTO, while SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO, Dosso DOSSI,
and Lorenzo LOTTO, although not settled in Venice, re-
tained a Venetian flavor to their works as a result of early
influences. In the later 16th century Mannerism, as exem-
plified by PALMA GIOVANE, prevailed over the characteristi-
cally Venetian style and the school lost its identity, which
only reemerged in the great 18th-century masters,
Canaletto and Francesco Guardi.Venice A northern Italian city and port, built on the is-
lands of an Adriatic lagoon, formerly a city state and ruler
of a maritime empire. Venice has long been famous for its
waterways; in the 15th century the Grand Canal was de-
scribed as “the finest street in the world.” Venice origi-
nated with the arrival of refugees from the Lombard
invasions (568); by the ninth century Venice was a city
ruled by a popularly elected DOGEand associated with the
Byzantine empire. By the late Middle Ages the doge had
lost much of his executive power to elected councils and
Venice was a great mercantile state competing and trading
with Constantinople.44886 6 VVeeggiioo,, MMaaffffeeoo