Veronese by François Crastre

These four "Feasts" of Veronese won him a widespread renown. But there were certain hostile spirits, uncompromising traditionalists, to whom the fantastic elements which he introduced into the composition of his religious pictures were necessarily strongly displeasing. To introduce dwarfs, buffoons, men at arms under the influence of liquor, at a feast where Jesus and his disciples take part, -- did not this savour of irreverence, nay, worse than that, of heresy?

The "Feast at the House of Levi the Publican", executed for the convent of San Giovanni e Paolo, in which Veronese had given free rein to his imagination, was denounced to the Holy Office, and on July 18, 1573, the artist was summoned before the tribunal of the Inquisition.