The Wedding at Cana and domestic maintenance; be provided a barrel of wine; and be fed in the refectory. Aesthetically, the Benedictine contract stipulated that the painter represent “the history of the banquet of Christ’s miracle at Cana, in Galilee, creating the number of [human] figures that can be fully accommodated.” That Veronese use "optimi colori" (optimum colours) — specifically, the colour ultramarine, a deep-blue pigment made from lapis lazuli, a semi-precious, metamorphic rock. Assisted by his brother, Benedetto Caliari, Veronese delivered the completed painting in September 1563, in time for the "Festa della Madonna della Salute", in November. In the 17th century, during
The Mouse Turned into a Maid man and his cat", while in the Latin explanatory text it reads "De Cata in Fœminam mutate" (The cat changed into a woman). Jean de la Fontaine wrote a separate version of this fable, also under the title "The cat changed into a woman" ("La chatte metamorphosée en femme", II.18), in which he gave the theme of change an extended, thoughtful treatment: Though La Fontaine avoided mention of Venus as the intermediary for the change in his fable, she is there in Christopher Pitt's "The Fable of the Young Man and his Cat", which is turned into a satirical picture