The True Story of Paolo Caliari 's The Wedding at Cana - The Wedding at Cana

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Welcome to theweddingatcana.org, a non-profit initiative devoted to sharing and spread, both among the scientific community and general public, the results of research resulting from several years of academic studies.
Our multidisciplinary research team is dedicated to documenting the findings revealed by X-rays carried out in the 1990s on the monumental canvas The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Caliari, Veronese.
These investigations arise from our original proposal about the identity of one of the participating musicians as the Neapolitan chapel master Diego Ortiz.
However, X-rays revealed an even greater surprise: the person hidden under Ortiz's face turned out to be the Venetian master Giorgio de Castelfranco, known as Giorgione, in memory of whom Titian wears a second gold ring.
The detailed study of the compositional and underlying elements (X-rays) of the canvas, has allowed us to elaborate a scientific and solid proposal of the various changes that the Veronese made until the last moments of his delivery.
The papers, books, and multimedia materials that we present here include these findings as well as a coherent narrative of them. These works have been presented in various scientific publications and, due to the multiple branches that derive from them, our team has also opted for digital publication under the Creative-Commons license in order to facilitate their dissemination to the scientific community and interested public.
The findings obtained have also been disseminated in conferences and master classes held at higher education institutions (higher conservatories, congresses ... ) recorded (mainly in Spanish) and can be viewed from this website and its Youtube Channel.
Una misa fúnebre para Giorgione en “Las Bodas de Caná” (1563) del Veronés. Más allá del consort Original
Giorgio de Castelfranco, llamado Giorgione, era el personaje central a cuyo alrededor Paolo Caliari estructuró en origen la disposición del grupo instrumental de Las Bodas de Caná. Para ello se sirvió de un diseño basado en un consort vocal junto a Giorgione y su laúd, acompañado de sí mismo al clavicémbalo. La escena incluía también algunos laúdes “silenciosos” sobre su propio instrumento.
The wedding at Cana: the forgotten history of a famous canvas
How Paolo Caliari buried the great master Giorgione for a second time under the colors of his palette, and the swings of the protagonists of the monumental work that marveled Europe for centuries.
The work recounts, in a literary tone, the rugged and laborious remodeling of the central scene of the painting from its beginnings to the providential arrival of Ortiz, along with the vicissitudes and misadventures suffered by its author.
Veronese and Diego Ortiz at San Giorgio: Profane Painters and Musicians and Sacred Places
Bilingual Edition: Spanish-English
International Conference of Music Patronage in Italy from the 15th to the 18th-Century. Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini. Lucca, Complesso Monumentale di San Micheletto. 16-18 November, 2019.
https://www.luigiboccherini.org/
Il Veronese and Giorgione in concerto: Diego Ortiz in Venice
We are proposing that the Spanish musician Diego Ortiz is represented in Paolo Veronese’s famous mannerist picture "The Wedding at Cana". Specifically, we suggest that he is the person who seems to be making comments to Veronese, as the conductor of a viola da gamba ensemble. Presumably, the author of the picture represents the musician as one of the most significant contemporary exponents of this instrument. We derive our proposals and conclusions from the few available biographical data of Diego Ortiz, his portraits in his treatise and in Veronesne’s canvas, and from an analysis of the repeated and unsuccessful trials in the literature to identify this personage.
We also suggest that the Venetian painter Giorgio da Castelfranco (named Giorgione), was represented in the initial design of the painting at the position of Ortiz and then painted over.
Tintoretto, i Grimani, and Alessandro Vittoria: Artists and patrons in Veronese ‘s Wedding at Cana
Alessandro Vittoria portrayed a large number of relevant contemporary characters in stone there in Venice, and at the same time, he was also portrayed by distinguished artists and friends. One of them, Paolo Caliari, included him in his formidable Wedding at Cana (1563) canvas, along with tens of Venetian and international authorities, renowned local Venetian artists, as well as ecclesiastical authorities and influential people associated to the Benedictine Order. For several decades, Alessandro was a regular collaborator to the author of the canvas and some of those depicted in there: We think that he could be the fifth commensal placed to the left of Jesus Christ.
El Segundo Consort: Laudes.
El gigantesco lienzo del Veronés para la congregación de San Giorgio Maggiore acabó siendo, durante los quince meses que tardó en completarse, una empresa bastante accidentada sobre un andamio muy transitado: había sido encargado por los monjes venecianos pocos meses después de comenzar la última convocatoria del Concilio de Trento, y fue entregado dos meses antes de su conclusión.
As we have mentioned before, this scientific work began in 2016 documenting the presence of Diego Ortiz and Giorgione in the great canvas of Veronés, but at that time nothing made us suspect the marvelous task that awaited us after this discovery and that is why we want to invite, from here, everyone to take part of this research.
Publications
We are proposing that the Spanish musician Diego Ortiz is represented in Paolo Veronese’s famous mannerist picture "The Wedding at Cana". Specifically, we suggest that he is the person who seems to be making comments to Veronese, as the conductor of a viola da gamba ensemble.
  • The wedding at Cana: the forgotten history of a famous canvas. [Download PDF]
How Paolo Caliari buried the great master Giorgione for a second time under the colors of his palette, and the swings of the protagonists of the monumental work that marveled Europe for centuries.
  • Veronese and Diego Ortiz at San Giorgio: Profane Painters and Musicians and Sacred Places. [Download PDF]
Bilingual Edition: Spanish-English. International Conference of Music Patronage in Italy from the 15th to the 18th-Century. Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini. Lucca, Complesso Monumentale di San Micheletto. 16-18 November, 2019. https://www.luigiboccherini.org/El gigantesco lienzo del Veronés para la congregación de San Giorgio Maggiore acabó siendo, durante los quince meses que tardó en completarse, una empresa bastante accidentada sobre un andamio muy transitado: había sido encargado por los monjes venecianos pocos meses después de comenzar la última convocatoria del Concilio de Trento, y fue entregado dos meses antes de su conclusión.
Alessandro Vittoria portrayed a large number of relevant contemporary characters in stone there in Venice, and at the same time, he was also portrayed by distinguished artists and friends. One of them, Paolo Caliari, included him in his formidable Wedding at Cana (1563) canvas, along with tens of Venetian and international authorities, renowned local Venetian artists, as well as ecclesiastical authorities and influential people associated to the Benedictine Order. For several decades, Alessandro was a regular collaborator to the author of the canvas and some of those depicted in there: We think that he could be the fifth commensal placed to the left of Jesus Christ.
Minerva, Geometry and Arithmetic, 1551
Paolo Caliari Veronese: Minerva, Geometry and Arithmetic, 1551.
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