VELAZQUEZ

37

The preparations of Velazquez for departure coincided with the
Count-Duke’s determination to despatch the great captain Ambrogio
Spinola to take the command in Italy. Spinola had but just returned
from his victorious campaign in the Netherlands, his prestige enhanced
by his latest exploit, the capture of Breda. It was resolved that
Velazquez should travel under the protection of the general, to whom he
afterwards paid so magnificent a tribute in the famous Las Lanzas. But
a visitor arriving in such company was by no means sure of a favourable
reception at all the Italian courts. In addition to the recommendations
he carried with him from the Minister, it was thought necessary to obtain
from the various Italian envoys in Madrid special letters, assuring their
respective Governments of the purely artistic and non-political object of
his journey. Several of these envoys supplemented their formal
despatches by private communications, designed to set at rest suspicions
that seem to have been entertained as to the possibility of the master’s
metier being a cloak for the functions of a spy. Safeguarded thus by
credentials to Rome, Venice, Bologna, Ferrara, and many of the minor
states, Velazquez left Madrid with Spinola, attended by his slave and
assistant, the Morisco Juan de Pareja, and embarked at Barcelona on
August io. He reached Genoa on the 20th. He probably travelled
to Milan with Spinola, and at any rate arrived in Venice by the end of
the month.
In Venice, the only one of the North Italian states which had
successfully resisted Spanish domination, hostility to Spain and her policy
was at its height. The Republic was preparing for war, arming and
recruiting with feverish energy. Mocenigo, the Venetian envoy in
Madrid, had given Velazquez a safe-conduct and letters to various
persons of importance in the city. He had also answered to the Senate
for his peaceable intentions. The painter was lodged in the Spanish
Embassy, but, in addition to other safeguards, it was deemed prudent to
protect him with an escort out of doors. Little is known of his sojourn
in the city of the lagoons, but it is easy to imagine how his days were
spent. Palomino says that he “ drew incessantly,” and spent much
time in the Scuola di San Rocco, making studies from the great works
of Tintoretto, especially from the Crucifixion. He made a copy of the
Last Supper for the king. The art of Tintoretto seems to have made