Bonifacio Veronese

Bonifacio Veronese painted the relaxed, colourful world of Venetian Renaissance art: holy families in open landscapes, elegant figures in rich silks, and crowded biblical feasts set among Venetian villas. His colour is warm and bright, and his scenes feel sociable, closer to daily life than to grand drama.

Born Bonifacio de’ Pitati in Verona in 1487, he moved to Venice with his family around 1505 and trained under Palma Vecchio. He ran a large, busy workshop that turned out everything from small devotional panels to big public commissions, above all a long series for the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi by the Rialto, which took two decades. His early work drew on Giorgione and Titian, later with touches of Raphael, and he influenced the young Tintoretto. His Dives and Lazarus (1540), in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, sets the parable at a lavish Venetian party. He died in 1553.

He should not be confused with the younger Paolo Veronese.