ten, a committee entrusted with the state’s
order and security. An extensive network
of spies and informers rooted out dissent
and conspiracy within the city, which
harshly punished the slightest threat to its
oligarchic form of government.
The art and architecture of Venice had
their roots in Byzantine style; the Cathe-
dral of Saint Mark raised in the eleventh
century is lavishly decorated in marble,
mosaic, and gilt. Many major artists, in-
cluding the Bellini family, Paolo Veronese,
Palladio, Titian, and Tintoretto, had their
homes and workshops in the city, and
decorated Venetian churches, monasteries,
and public buildings with many of the
most renowned frescoes and canvases of
the Renaissance. Venice was also an im-
portant early center of the printing indus-
try, and laid claim to the busiest publish-
ing industry in Renaissance Europe. The
presses of Venice turned out the first edi-
tions of classical Greek and Latin authors
who played a vital role as a foundation of
the intellectual and artistic life of the Re-
naissance.
Venice built a huge fleet of merchant
ships at its famous Arsenal, one of the
largest ship works in Europe. But with the
rise of the Ottoman Empire, which con-
quered the Byzantine Empire in the middle
of the fifteenth century, Venice was again
contending for control of the eastern
Mediterranean. The Ottoman navy cut
many of Venice’s important links with the
East. Despite the victory of a European al-
liance against the Turkish fleet at the Battle
of Lepanto in 1571, Venice began a slow
decline that lasted two centuries. Its mer-
chant empire in the east was being sur-
passed by trade with the New World,
which its rivals in Europe were exploiting,
while the Turks eventually captured all the
Venetian possessions in Greece as well as
Cyprus and the coast of Dalmatia. In 1797
Venice was conquered by Napoléon
Bonaparte, and granted by the French to
Austria in the Treaty of Campo Formio.
This put an official end to Venice’s status
as an independent republic.Veronese, Paolo ...............................
(1528–1588)
Italian artist of the “Venetian school” who
is considered one of the most important
painters of Venice during the late Italian
Renaissance. Born as Paolo Caliari in Ve-
rona, he was the son of a stonecutter, and
gained the nickname “Veronese” from his
native city. Veronese trained in the work-
shop of Antonio Badile. In 1548, he moved
to Mantua, where he took part in the deco-
ration of the city’s cathedral. He then ar-
rived in Venice, where he won many im-
portant commissions and where he
remained for the rest of his life. As a
younger artist he was influenced by the
works of Giulio Romano and later by
Titian.
Veronese became a master of the diffi-
cult art of fresco painting, in which paint
is applied to wet plaster, with which it
dries. He used brilliant colors and rich de-
tail, and was keenly sensitive to the vary-
ing textures of fabric, stone, and sky. He
was also skilled in the arts of perspective,
foreshortening, and illusionistic painting,
all of which became important ingredients
in the Mannerist style developed in the
works of the late Italian Renaissance. Many
of his works explore religious and mytho-
logical themes, such asThe Temptation of
St. Anthony, completed in 1552. For the
Doge’s Palace in Venice he completed a fa-
mous ceiling painting,Jupiter Fulminating
the Vices, and other works for the Sala del
Consiglio, a major meeting hall of the pal-
ace, in 1554. After a fire destroyed a por-
tion of the palace, Veronese helped to re-Veronese, Paolo