so in the villa at maser, veronese reenacts the role of a painter from ancient times.a new vitruvius, and barbaro a new pliny, a patron in the roman tradition. but of course these scholarly games were being played out in a real world of political and economic change. the stability of the venetian empire was being undermined throughout the 16th century. by the late 1500s, the land holdings of the veneto had become more and more important to the venetian nobility. they invested in land reclamation which would feed them in the short term, but also protect them from the full consuences of a decline in their status as traders. as the century progressed, so did the threat to venetian trade from the ottoman turks in the east and the new empires in the west. the crisis in the church, reformation and counter reformation, added a further burden of uncertainty. the gap between rhetoric and reality was widening. yet as the century moved to a close, the investment in the theater of illusion, if anything, increased. the citizens of vincenza, one of the leading cities of the venetian