d the climax of civilization to which the other continents were shown paying homage." But the almost preposterous disparity between subject and execution is actually typical of much of Tiepolo's secular work in which the Venetian nobility are equated with classical heroes and the ancient gods. It could also be said, therefore, that just as the Wnrzburg fresco represented the height of Tiepolo's artistic achievement, it also represented the most extreme of those works in which his patrons flattered themselves by commissioning works that referred to their past glories or elevated their contemporary affairs to mythic heights.
Tiepolo was born in 1696 and first began to exhibit his work when he was 20. Demand for the artist rose quickly as, working through a number of influences, he developed a unique style suited both to religious works and "the subjects he was particularly required to paint: battle scenes and triumphs taken largely from Roman history." When Tiepolo was commissioned by the Dolfin, an old and tremendously wealthy family, to create a series of 10 such Roman subjects, the painter's path was determined. Among the Venetian nobility it had become a common fashion to "celebrate their (almost always spurious) lineage from the ancient Romans," and Tiepolo's facility in designing imposing original versions of these stories--with appropriate relevance to his patrons--was soon to make him the preferred fresco painter of the Venetian aristocracy.
The source of this desire for self-aggrandizement lay in the decline Venice was experiencing. Though they were not aware that their city's eminence could never be recovered, the Venetians were, for the first time in centuries, a neutral state, with vastly reduced territories, who sought to maintain the status quo by avoiding giving offense to any of the major powers. The Republic's treasury, already severely reduced by war, lost many of its traditional sources of revenue, one...