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(1571) was promptly celebrated in a battle scene (burned in 1577) by tin-
toretto. At the same time, the separate peace of the republic with the
turks (1573), which was criticized by more parties than just the pope, was
justified in Veronese’s devotional painting (which diverges from a surviv-
ing sketch) of Doge Sebastiano Venier. His emphasis of Fides implicitly
argues that the treaty was an inevitable outcome of political realism and
not an abandonment of principles, as the critics of the peace agreement
had charged. Jacopo Palma’s (c.1548–1628) designs for the Paradise of the
Sala del Maggior Consiglio, in which the defeat, yes, even the downfall of
the Ottomans, was dealt with polemically, presumably did not come to
fruition as a result of its undisguised anti-Ottoman propaganda.
regarding the histories in the Great council, an idea arose to have
memorable paintings demonstrate the official versions of events. Paint-
ings and accounts of lost images were valued as image documents equiva-
lent to written documents. this practice corresponded to the demands
of counter reformation art theorists (such as Armenini and Paleotti) for
veracity in history paintings (il vero) and a marginal role for artistically
motivated additions (poesia). thus, it is all the more incomprehensible
when falsifications of the tradition occur, such as in the last image of the
Impresa di Costantinopoli, in which Andrea Vincentino (Michieli; c.1542–
c.1617) depicted an event that never occurred, an event which in the Vene-
tian state system was unthinkable: the crowning of Baldwin of Flanders as
emperor of the eastern roman empire by Doge enrico Dandolo.
While the Senate allowed those forming the agenda to repeat the offi-
cial version of historical events, the painters created their own concep-
tions and/or made inferences that often deviated from official statements
and thus relativized them. this also applied to the circumstances and
the course of military conflicts. tintoretto stressed the physical strength
of Herculean and faceless soldiers. Francesco Bassano (1549–92) empha-
sized the pain and suffering of the people on campaigns, while Veronese
avoided the confrontation of soldiers and recorded moments before or
after the battle in a landscape with stands of trees, and in this way opened
an unexpected approach to military conflict. At the same time, every
painter displayed his personal art as connoisseurs had come to expect it,
consisting of his special, recognizable view of people and things.
the painters deviated from many of those stipulations thought to be
obligatory. the “picture” that the authors of the agenda had formulated
corresponded only in part to the picture that the painters considered suit-
able. these departures had as much a formal as a content-based dimen-
sion, as in the case of the three allegories on the ceiling of the Sala del