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 a man and begs Aphrodite to change her into a human, but then goes chasing after a mouse in the middle of the marriage feast. In ancient times it was speculated that the Greek proverb ‘a saffron (wedding) robe does not suit a weasel’ was connected with the fable and has much the same meaning that one’s underlying nature does not change with circumstances. When the fable was related by Hieronymus Osius in a New Latin poem, nearly half of it was taken up by a consideration of basic unchangeability, the sense being echoed by internal rhyme and assonance: "Difficult