"we painters take the same liberties as poets and madmen"

- Paolo Veronese

The Accademia in Venice is one of the true high points of a visit there. Across the Grand Canal from San Marco, walking over the Academy Bridge (Ponte dell'Accademia) is itself a moment to remember - as one of only three bridges crossing the GC, this one is still a wood supported structure. It was built in 1985 to replace the prior one built in 1930, which had in turn replaced the original steel. While not old, it is reminiscent of the past. On the North end of the bridge is a cluster of Palazzos, and a bramble of pink roses, in the center of which is a stone lion standing guard. On the South end, there is the bustle of the piazza in front of the Accademia, a port of call for the Vaporetto and a busy collection of tourist booths and food stalls. Entry to the Accademia - once a Monastery - is a time-stamp ticket, controlling carefully the number of visitors; this like so many of the great museums of Italy is not air-conditioned, so the humidity and temperature is monitored, regulating the flow of visitors. The control however is welcoming, allowing for contemplation of the great building; up the stairs and into the first gallery, a large room filled with 15th century Icons, I could not help but be drawn upward to the ceiling, a mesmerizing grid work of gold, with winged cherub faces centering each square against a field of blue - the stuff of Christmas Cards, created in the Renaissance and carefully preserved. Room after room of masterworks, but the one that perhaps stands above the rest is the massive Veronese known as the "Feast in the House of Levi". At almost 18 feet tall by 50 feet long, it is inescapable. Furthermore the painting of stairways and arches demonstrating Veronese's extraordinary sense of perspective invites the viewer to enter the painting - and in fact the near-life size figures virtually breath.

The painting was originally commissioned to replace a large Titian lost in a fire at the Basilica di Santi Giovanni. It was commissioned as "The Last Supper" - a name it originally bore when unveiled in 1573. The painting caused a furor, peopled not just with the Disciples but with dozens of German soldiers, animals, common people and comics and dwarfs. Veronese himself is among the crowd, as a disinterested viewer. The story it told through details and often undecorative, unsavory elements was a thinly guised blast at the Inquisition, and in fact was cause to have Veronese himself pulled in front of the Counter Reformers to explain its meaning. The painting had strayed from the august inference of the disciples - it demonstrated the power of a church-sanctioned circus losing sight of the important central figure. His hearing was carefully poised as a "caution", rather than a punishment; Veronese carefully stepped through the Inquisitors' rings, stating "we painters take the same liberties as poets and madmen" - and by changing the name of the masterwork to a less-sacramental, lesser feast at the House of Levi - wherein the added figures became an ebullient crowd. Veronese and the painting survived; today it hangs as a magnificent reminder that politics and controversy were then as they are today a part of the work's importance.