Corporate Colors: Bonifacio and Tintoretto at the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi in Venice

The decision to fill every niche of each room of the new section with full-size canvases is an indication that the government thought of the decoration as a long-term project. The only way to meet the expenses incurred was to implement a system of patronage that had already been employed in the decoration of the official apartments of the Doge's Palace. [13] This system was typical of Venetian thrift in that the substantial costs of the scheme were met by the elected magistrates themselves; the successive officers of each particular magistracy, who were regularly elected every sixteen months from the ranks of the Venetian aristocracy, would be allowed to pay for the privilege of celebrating their own period of state service by financing a commemorative work by a painter chosen by the state. Usually, two or three incumbents would club together in commissioning one single work that would then be installed sometime before the tenure of the last to enter office was complete. Fortunately, the names of each magistrate and the period of his office have, in the main, survived in governmental records (these lists, the Segretario alle Voci, are preserved in the Archivio di Stato in Venice). As a consequence, the dating and patronage of each painting is often relatively straightforward. [14]

Just as the physical fabric of the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi can be split into two distinct parts, the decoration of the interior also divides itself between the old and new sections of the building. From the beginning, the officers of the older part of the building seemed to have been reluctant to commission paintings for their chambers. [15] Owing to the absence of niches in this part of the palace, the decoration was far more piecemeal than was the case in the chambers of the new section. A number of paintings that made up a fair proportion of the resultant decoration of this part of the building were either older acquisitions from other offices or were commissioned to echo the conservative styles of these works. [16] It is possible that these officers, as members of the most eminent departments, occupying the oldest part of the building, sought to preserve their identity and to emphasize their venerable status. With one possible exception, they resisted the modern style utilized by the artist employed on th e decoration of the new section, Bonifacio Veronese. Any pictures commissioned by the original departments in the immediate aftermath of architectural refurbishment seem deliberately designed to echo the traditional idioms of those pictures already installed in the administrative departments of the Doge's Palace and elsewhere. The decoration of the old section only brought itself in line with the rest of the building once Bonifacio's successor, Jacopo Tintoretto, had become involved, around the time of the former's death in 1553. [17]

Bonifacio Veronese's Stewardship of the Scheme from 1529 to 1553

In order to maintain the semblance of artistic continuity that was essential to the overall success of the scheme in the new part of the palace, the authorities initially settled on a single artist to take charge of the commission. This artist had to deliver full-size canvases of a sufficiently high quality in a manner representative of the fashionable style of the day, quickly, and (perhaps most important for the seat of the Treasury) at a bargain price. The artist the authorities selected, the Veronese Bonifacio de' Pitati, better known as Bonifacio Veronese (1487-1553), was an unlikely and surprising choice for such a gargantuan task. Active in Venice since his youth, previously he had been almost exclusively the author of beguiling, but rather unambitious, sacre conversazioni intended for private patrons. However, after this sluggish start to his career, Bonifacio was to prove himself a gifted organizer and artistic entrepreneur. Most of all, he was an opportunist who quickly adapted to new situations and requirements. [18]