One of The Christian Science Monitor's Ten Best Books of May "A highly original work of history . . . [Saltzman] has written a distinctive study that transcends both art and history and forces us to explore the connections between the two.” —Roger Lowenstein, The Wall Street Journal A captivatingstudy of Napoleon’s plundering of Europe’s art for the Louvre, told through the story of a Renaissance masterpiece seized from Venice Cynthia Saltzman’s Plunder recounts the fate of Paolo Veronese’s Wedding Feast at Cana, a vast, sublime canvas that the French, under the command of the young Napoleon Bonaparte, tore from a wall of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, on an island in Venice, in 1797. Painted in 1563 during the Renaissance, the picture was immediately hailed as a masterpiece. Veronese had filled the scene with some 130 figures, lavishing color on the canvas to build the illusion that the viewers’ space opened onto a biblical banquet taking place on a terrace in sixteenth-century Venice. Once pulled from the wall, the Venetian canvas crossed the Mediterranean rolled on a cylinder; soon after, artworks commandeered from Venice and Rome were triumphantly brought into Paris. In 1801, the Veronese went on exhibition at the Louvre, the new public art museum founded during the Revolution in the former palace of the French kings. As Saltzman tells the larger story of Napoleon’s looting of Italian art and its role in the creation of the Louvre, she reveals the contradictions of his character: his thirst for greatness—to carry forward the finest aspects of civilization—and his ruthlessness in getting whatever he sought. After Napoleon’s 1815 defeat at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington and the Allies forced the French to return many of the Louvre’s plundered paintings and sculptures. Nevertheless, The Wedding Feast at Cana remains in Paris to this day, hanging directly across from the Mona Lisa. Expertly researched and deftly told, Plunder chronicles one of the most spectacular art appropriation campaigns in history, one that sheds light on a seminal historical figure and the complex origins of one of the great museums of the world.

One of the principle painters of the sixteenth century Venetian school, Paolo Veronese produced monumental works, portraying allegorical, biblical and historical subjects in splendid colour, set against the backdrop of Renaissance architecture. A master of colour, Veronese also excelled at illusionary compositions that extend the eye beyond the actual confines of the room. After an early period of Mannerism, he developed a naturalist style of painting, which was influenced by Titian and would go on to inspire the masters of the Baroque and later eras. His works are celebrated for their chromatic brilliance, sensibility of brushwork, aristocratic elegance and the sheer magnificence of spectacle. Delphi’s Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents Veronese’s complete paintings in beautiful detail, with concise introductions, hundreds of high quality images and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * The complete paintings of Paolo Veronese – over 500 images, fully indexed and arranged in chronological and alphabetical order * Includes reproductions of rare works * Features a special ‘Highlights’ section, with concise introductions to the masterpieces, giving valuable contextual information * Enlarged ‘Detail’ images, allowing you to explore Veronese’s celebrated works in detail, as featured in traditional art books * Hundreds of images in colour – highly recommended for viewing on tablets and smartphones or as a valuable reference tool on more conventional eReaders * Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the paintings * Easily locate the artworks you wish to view * Features two biographies, including Vasari’s original ‘Life’ Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting e-Art books CONTENTS: The Highlights Conversion of Mary Magdalene (1547) Enthroned Madonna and Child, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Louis of Toulouse and Donors (1548) Portrait of Iseppo da Porto and his son Adriano (1551) The Pala Giustinian (1551) Jupiter Hurling Thunderbolts and the Vices (1556) La Bella Nani (c. 1556) Ceiling of the Sala dell’Olimpo, Villa Barbaro (1560) The Wedding Feast at Cana (1563) The Family of Darius before Alexander (c. 1565) Portrait of Daniele Barbaro (1567) Feast at the House of Simon (1570) The Feast in the House of Levi (1573) Adoration of the Magi (1573) The Dream of Saint Helena (1578) Venus and Adonis (1580) Miracle of Saint Pantaleon (1587) The Paintings The Complete Paintings Alphabetical List of Paintings The Biographies Life of Paolino (1568) by Giorgio Vasari Veronese by François Crastre Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles or to buy the whole Art series as a Super Set

Catalog of the exhibition "Veronese: magnificence in Renaissance Venice" held March 19-June 15, 2014 at the National Gallery, London.

The painter Veronese's life is here displayed in several early biographies, each showcasing a different side of the artist "Never was a painter more nobly joyous, never did an artist take a greater delight in life, seeing it all as a kind of breezy festival and feeling it through the medium of perpetual success. . . He was the happiest of painters." --Henry James on Veronese, 1909 Collected here for the first time, these fascinating early biographies (one of which has never been translated before) describe and celebrate the astonishingly fertile art of Paolo Veronese. Most of what we know about Veronese comes from these three essays. "I have known this Paolino and I have seen his beautiful works. He deserves to have a great volume written in praise of him, for his pictures prove that he is second to no other painter," wrote Veronese's contemporary Annibale Carracci in the margins to his copy of Vasari's writings, continuing "and this fool passes over him in four lines. And just because he was not Florentine." It was indeed a measure of his fame that Vasari, whose Life of Veronese is reprinted here, should have overcome his pro-Tuscan prejudices to write about his great Venetian contemporary; and he was followed in this by another Florentine, the theorist Raffaele Borghini. But the most striking record of the impact of Veronese's art on his countrymen is the extensive biography by his fellow Venetian, Carlo Ridolfi. Entirely original in the seriousness and passion with which he approached his subject, Ridolfi permanently changed the course of writing about art. This is the first translation of his work into English, translated and introduced by Xavier F. Salomon, curator of "Veronese: Renaissance Magnificence" at the National Gallery, London. 50 pages of color illustrations cover the span of Veronese's breathtaking career.