Paolo Caliari--called Veronese--enjoyed great success with the critics right from the early years of his career, with the result that he was able to obtain public commissions of exceptional prestige at the age of just twenty-five. An undisputed reputation is not the same thing, however, as unequivocal interpretation. Quite the contrary: even today the debate continues among critics over the matrices, relationships, influences and derivations in Paolo's work and from Paolo's work, starting with the simplest and at the same time most embarrassing question of all: in what figurative culture,what tradition of painting, what cultural milieu,do Veronese's origins lie?