Image Details

Scala/Art Resource, N.Y.

Curiosity gets the better of these women, who have climbed to the rooftops and upper-story windows to catch a glimpse of the extravagant goings-on below (compare with photo of “The Feast in the House of Levi”). Veronese told the court that he was simply taking poetic license in creating this heavily populated “Last Supper.” But perhaps his all-inclusive meal, with women, Lutherans, drunks and dogs, was instead a reaction to the relatively closed church of the Inquisition.