Restored in 1978 with Save Venice general funds.

For a long time, scholars believed that the painting represented doge Leonardo Loredan (reigned 1501–1520) offering copies of the laws of Venice to the ambassadors from Nuremberg. The story has its roots in humanist Pietro Bembo’s Della Historia vinitiana (1552), in which he claims that a delegation from Nuremberg arrived in Venice “to ask the senators for a copy of the laws of the Republic, declaring that they wanted to make use of those laws themselves.”

That event never occurred, evidence shows. Indeed, in 1506 Nuremberg did send letters to the Senate asking for a copy of the Venetian emancipation law, but an official diplomatic mission to Venice never took place. Furthermore, the doge represented in the painting cannot be confused with Loredan, who did not wear a beard and whose real face can be seen in Vittore Carpaccio’s famous Portrait of doge Leonardo Loredan, currently at the Museo Correr, Venice, and restored by Save Venice in 2003. As things stand, it is, therefore, more probable that the painting portrays an ideal diplomatic audience and, as with The Reception of the Persian Ambassadors in Collegio, it served the purpose of reaffirming the Republic’s self-conception as a model of constitutional law and a bulwark against tyranny.

A new document uncovered at the Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Venice, shows that the final payment for The Audience of an Ambassador in Collegio was made to Paolo Veronese’s brother, Benedetto Calliari, on 14 October 1592. After Veronse’s death in 1588, members of his workshop—specifically his sons Carletto and Gabriele Caliari and his brother Benedetto—finished a number of paintings for several rooms of the Palazzo Ducale. They referred to themselves as the “haeredes Pauli,” the heirs of Paolo, and often signed their collective works with this name. Although the payment for this painting was made to Benedetto, it is likely that Carletto painted at least part of the canvas. This hypothesis is based on a fine profile sketch of the pageboy by Carletto now housed at the Musée du Louvre. All things considered, it seems reasonable to give the painting to the so-called heirs of Paolo.

The work was restored by conservators Serafino and Ferruccio Volpin, with the guidance of project director Giovanna Nepi Scirè of the Superintendency of Fine Arts of Venice.

For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.

Heirs of Paolo Veronese [attr.]
The Audience of an Ambassador in Collegio
1591 – 1592, oil on canvas
400 x 210 cm
Sala delle Quattro Porte, Palazzo Ducale

Palazzo Ducale: Homepage

Dalla Costa, Thomas. Veronese e la bottega. Le botteghe dei Caliari, in Marini, Paola and Bernard Aikema, eds. Paolo Veronese. L’illusione della realtà. Milan: Electa, 2014, pp. 314-326. Link to the article

 Delorenzi, Paolo. Le carte del Provveditore. Nuovi documenti sulla decorazione tardo-cinquecentesca del Palazzo Ducale di Venezia. In Marinelli, Sergio, ed. Aldèbaran III. Storia dell’Arte. Verona: Scripta edizioni, 2015, pp. 109-150. Link to the article

Meijer, Bert W. “Iets over tekenpraktijk bij de erfgenamen van de werkplaats van Paolo Veronese.” Kunstlicht, 27, 2/3 (2006), pp. 21-25

Rearick, William R. Il disegno in Veneto e in Friuli nel Cinquecento. In Furlan Caterina, ed. Dal Pordenone a Palma il Giovane. Devozione e pietà nel disegno veneziano del Cinquecento. Milan: Electa, 2000, pp. 3-24

Wolters, Wolfgang. Storia e politica nei dipinti di Palazzo Ducale. Venice: Arsenale Editrice, 1987