Barbaro family
By 1556 Veronese was commissioned to paint the first of his monumental banquet scenes, the "Feast in the House of Simon", which would not be concluded until 1570. Owing to its scattered composition and lack of focus, however, it was not his most successful refectory mural. In the late 1550s, during a break in his work for San Sebastiano, Veronese decorated the Villa Barbaro in Maser, a newly finished building by the architect Andrea Palladio. The frescoes were designed to unite humanistic culture with Christian spirituality; wall paintings included portraits of the Barbaro family, and the ceilings opened to blue skies and mythological figures. Veronese's decorations employed complex perspective and "trompe-l'œil", and resulted in a luminescent and inspired visual poetry. The encounter between architect and artist was a triumph.