BONIFACIO VERONESE - Moses Saved from the Waters - Milan, Brera Picture Gallery.
(Alinari photograph)
nassi: Commentarius in Clementinas constitutiones a Io. Manassio summariis illustratus (Venice 1574).
He also dealt with criminal law, and left a work Super maleficiis (ibid. 1518, Frankfurt 1604, published several times).
BONIFACIO VERONESE (BONIFACIO DE' PITATI). - Painter, born in Verona around 1487, died in Venice in 1553. Few of his works are dated; none are known with certainty to predate 1530, a period in which B. already appears as a mature artist. Conversely, his workshop produced an extremely large number of works, making it difficult to determine the master's exact contribution. Consequently, reconstructing his artistic personality is challenging.
He derives directly from the Venetian milieu, particularly from Titian and Palma il Vecchio, whose tonalism he refines with a greater richness of luminosity, as evidenced by the works generally attributed to the period before 1530 (The Holy Family with Saints at the Louvre, The Holy Family with Tobias and the Angel at the Ambrosiana in Milan, The Holy Family with Saints at the Boston Museum—where the prototype of the saint clearly recalls Titian—and The Holy Family at the Hermitage in Leningrad, where the foliage in the background also evokes Titian's landscapes). From 1530 to 1533, new elements emerge due to a more rigorous draftsmanship; this evolution can be traced in the series of paintings for the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi, such as The Judgment of Solomon (1533), and in the Madonna and Saints at the Royal Palace of Venice (1533), characterized by stiffer drapery than usual and a reduced richness of color. Later, a darker chromatic range and greater elasticity in the figures reveal the influence of Tintoretto. However, B. never adopts dramatic accents, as every figurative motif in his painting assumes a narrative and decorative value. Thus, his biblical and evangelical scenes serve merely as occasions for depicting sumptuous settings and scenes of elegant Venetian life (most famous are The Finding of Moses at Brera and The Rich Man at the Feast at the Accademia in Venice [1545-50]).