At half of the sixteenth century, the Senate of the Serenissima Republic had planned to remove the by that time damaged fresco “Incoronation of the Virgin”, painted in the year 1367 for the Major Council hall, and to replace it with a new work of art (a canvas this time) by a famous contemporary artist. This idea lasted for some time, until the disastrous (and maybe opportune) fire of 1577 destroyed a big part of Palazzo Ducale. Before this happened Jacopo Tintoretto, brilliant master and at the same time able manager of himself and of his workshop, was not exactly clear in his relationships with rivals, and he had prepared himself to the need by preparing a first draft (now at the Louvre Museum) around 1564, which was afterwards revised in 1582, the year of the probable competition for the “Paradise”, new name given to the commissioned work. Some additional touches were appropriate in order to adjust the subject to the new cultural atmosphere of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. To the competition took part with their drafts the most important painters of the time: Veronese who in 1582, in the very hall of the Major Council had placed his wonderful “Apotheosis of Venice”; Francesco da Bassano, at the climax of his career, and the less titled, also for age reasons, Palma il Giovane. The last one was left out, because he was not put with the great ones yet, and the competition was won by Veronese, but with the term that the sides would have been given to Bassano.

This obviously did not happen, due to the rivalry between the two artists and also the different style of the sketches, compared in the interesting exhibition open until 3 December in the hall of the Major Council of Palazzo Ducale. There it is also possible to see the innovative sketch by Palma il Giovane and the two by Tintoretto. The first is the one of 1564-1582 in Louvre and the second of 1588 ( (now at the Thyssen- Bornemisza Museum in Madrid) In 1588 Veronese dies, without having ever worked at this task, and Tintoretto, although already seventy-years-old, does not lose the chance to replace him. To get this work assigned would have been the crowning achievement of his more than impressive and honoured artistic career. The artist was so happy with this achievement that he autoreduced the compensation set by the Senate. It begins the titanic enterprise of “The Paradise”, which in its huge dimensions (7 for 22 metres) is still visible there. Actually, it is more the result of workshop work than of a master, and it is too overcrowded by the over 500 bodies progressively reducing the part of sky present in the two previous models. An immensely successful piece of art, as show the copies that are starting to circulate in Europe: one, by Jacopo himself, given to I.R.E, almost identical to the sketch of 1582 and the second one of 1592 by his son Domenico, owned by the Cassa di Risparmio of Venice, very near to what will be the Paradise’s final version. This exhibition is a unique occasion of confrontation between the different projects about which the visitor will be able to give an evaluation by filling a form.

Before entering the Major Council hall it is recommendable to stop in the nearby hall, where is exhibited what remains of the nonetheless gorgeous fresco by Guariento, restored some ten years ago.