That Sebastiano stood in close relation to his master, Giorgione, is evidenced not only by Vasari's statement, but by the obvious dependence of the S. Giovanni Crisostomo altar-piece at Venice on Giorgionesque models. Moreover, the "Violin Player," formerly in the Sciarra Palace, at once reminds us of the "Barberigo" portrait at Cobham, while the "Herodias with the Head of John Baptist," dated 1510, now in the collection of Mr. George Salting, shows conclusively how closely related were the two painters in the last year of Giorgione's life. Sebastiano was twenty-five years of age in 1510, and appears to have worked under Giorgione for some time before removing to Rome, which he did on, or shortly before, his master's death. His departure left Titian, his associate under Giorgione, master of the field; he, too, had a hand in finishing some of the work left incomplete in the atelier, and his privilege it became to continue the Giorgionesque tradition, and to realise in utmost perfection in after years the aspirations and ideals so brilliantly anticipated by the young genius of Castelfranco.[137]

NOTES:

[113] The Doges Agostino Barberigo, and Leonardo Loredano, Consalvo of Cordova, Giovanni Borgherini and his tutor, Luigi Crasso, and others, are mentioned as having sat to Giorgione for their portraits. Modern criticism has recently distributed several "Giorgionesque" portraits in English collections among Licinio, Lotto, and even Polidoro! But this disintegrating process may be, and has been, carried too far.

[114] Two more small works may be mentioned which may tentatively be ascribed to Giorgione. "The Two Musicians," in the Glasgow Gallery (recently transferred to Campagnola), and a "Sta. Justina" (known to me only from a photograph), which has passed lately into the collection of Herr von Kauffmann at Berlin.

Signor Venturi (L'Arte, 1900) has just acquired for the National Gallery in Rome a "St. George slaying the Dragon." Judging only from the photograph, I should say he is correct in his identification of this as Giorgione's work. It seems to be akin to the "Apollo and Daphne," and "Orpheus and Eurydice."

[115] I am pleased to find Signor Venturi has anticipated my own conclusion in his recently published La Galleria Crespi.

[116] Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse (In the National Gallery, p. 223) has already rightly recognised the same hand in this picture and in the "Epiphany" hanging just below.

[117] Meravig, i. 124.

[118] By a happy accident the new "Giorgione" label, intended for the "Epiphany," No. 1160, was for some time affixed to No. 1173.

[119] When in the Orleans Gallery the picture was engraved under Giorgione's name by de Longueil and Halbon.

[120] New illustrated edition of the National Gallery Catalogue, 1900.

[121] Now in America, in Mrs. Gardner's Collection.

[122] Crowe and Cavalcaselle: Titian, i. p. III. This picture was then at Burleigh House.

[123] See La Galleria Crespi, 1900.

[124] The Earlier Work of Titian p. 24. Portfolio, October 1897.

[125] Tizian, p. 16.

[126] Morelli, ii. 57, note.

[127] See antea, p. 71.

[128] With the exception of the right arm, which Titian has let fall, instead placing it behind the head of the sleeping goddess. The effect of the beautiful curve is thereby lost, and Titian shows himself Giorgione's inferior in quality of line.

[129] As in the "Aeneas and Evander" (Vienna), the "Judith" (St. Petersburg), the Madrid "Madonna and Saints," etc.

[130] As in the "Caterina Cornare" of the Crespi collection at Milan.

[131] Magazine of Art. July 1895.

[132] North American Review. October 1899.

[133] Magazine of Art, 1890, pp. 91 and 138.

[134] The small divergencies of detail in the dress of the "Adulteress," etc., are just such as an imitator might have ventured to make. The hand and arm of the Christ have, however, been altered for the better.

[135] This is the first time in Venetian art that the subject appears. It is frequently found later.

[136] Cariani is by some made responsible for the whole picture. A comparison with an authentic example hanging (in the new arrangement of the Long Gallery), close by, ought surely to convince the advocates of Cariani of their mistake.

[137] Morto da Feltre is mentioned by Vasari as having assisted Giorgione in the decoration of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. This was in 1508. Otherwise, we know of no pupils or assistants employed by the master, a fact which goes to show that his influence was felt, not so much through any personal teaching, as through his work.



CHAPTER VI

GIORGIONE'S ART, AND PLACE IN HISTORY

The examination in detail of all those pictures best entitled, on internal evidence, to rank as genuine productions of Giorgione has incidentally revealed to us much that is characteristic of the man himself. We started with the axiom that a man's work is his best autobiography, and where, as in Giorgione's case, so little historical or documentary record exists, such indications of character as may be gleaned from a study of his life's work become of the utmost value. Le style c'est l'homme is a saying eminently applicable in cases where, as with Giorgione, the personal element is strongly marked. The subject, as we have seen over and over again, is so highly charged with the artist's mood, with his individual feelings and emotions, that it becomes unrecognisable as mere illustration, and the work passes by virtue of sheer inspiration into the higher realms of creative art. Such fusion of personality and subject is the characteristic of lyrical art, and in this domain Giorgione is a supreme master. His genius, as Morelli rightly pointed out, is essentially lyrical in contradistinction to Titian's, which is essentially dramatic. Take the epithets that we have constantly applied to his pictures in the course of our survey, and see how they bear out this statement—epithets such as romantic, fantastic, picturesque, gay, or again, delicate, refined, sensitive, serene, and the like; these bear witness to qualities of mind where the keynote is invariably exquisite feeling. Giorgione was, in fact, what is commonly called a poet-painter, gifted with the artistic temperament to an extraordinary degree, essentially impulsive, a man of moods. It is inevitable that such a man produces work of varying merit; inequality must be a characteristic feature of his art. In less fortunate circumstances than those in which Giorgione was placed, such temperaments as his become peevish, morose, morbid; but his lines were cast in pleasant places, and his moods were healthy, joyous, and serene. He does not concern himself with the tragedy of life, with its pathos or its disappointments. In his two renderings of "Christ bearing the Cross"[138]—the only instances we have of his portrayal of the Man of Sorrows—he appeals more to our sense of the dignity of humanity, and to the nobility of the Christ, than to our tenderer sympathies. How different from the pathetic Pietas of his master, Giambellini! This shrinking from pain and sorrow, this dislike to the representation of suffering is, however, as much due to the natural gaiety and elasticity of youth as to the happy accident of his surroundings. We must never forget that Giorgione's whole achievement was over at an age when some men's life-work has hardly begun. The eighteen years of his activity were what we sometimes call the years of promise, and he must not be judged as we judge a Titian or a Michel Angelo. He is the wonderful youth, full of joyous aspirations, gilding all he touches with the radiance of his spirit. His pictures, suffused with a golden glow, are the reflection of his sunny life; the vividness and intensity of his passion are expressed in the gorgeousness of his colours.

I have elsewhere dwelt upon the precocity of Giorgione's talent, with its accompanying qualities of versatility, inequality, and productiveness, and I have pointed out the analogous phenomena in music and poetry. Giorgione, Schubert, and Keats are alike in temperament and quality of expression. They are curiously alike in the shortness of their lives,[139] and the fever-heat of their production. But they are strangely distinct in the manner of their lives. The disparity of outward circumstances accounts for the healthy tone of Giorgione's art, when contrasted with the morbid utterances of Keats. Schubert suffered privations and poverty, and his song was wrung from him alike at moments of inspiration and of necessity. But Giorgione is all aglow with natural energy; he suffered no restraints, nor is his art forced or morbid. Confine his spirit, check the play of his fancy, set him a task prescribed by convention or hampered by conditions, and you get proof of the fretfulness, the impatience of restraint which the artist felt. The "Judgment of Solomon" and "The Adulteress before Christ," the only two "set" pieces he ever attempted, eloquently show how he fell short when struggling athwart his genius. For to register a fact was utterly foreign to his nature; he records an impression, frankly surrendering his spirit to the sense of joy and beauty. He is not seldom incoherent, and may even grow careless, but in power of imagination and exuberance of fancy he is always supreme.

In one respect, however, Giorgione shows himself a greater than Schubert or Keats. He has a profounder insight into human nature in its varying aspects than either the musician or the poet. He is less a visionary, because his experience of men and things is greater than theirs; his outlook is wider, he is less self-centred. This power of grasping objective truth naturally shows itself most readily in the portraits he painted, and it was due to the force of circumstances, as I believe, that this faculty was trained and developed. Had Giorgione lived aloof from the world, had not his natural reticence and sensitiveness been dominated by outside influences, he might have remained all his life dreaming dreams, and seeing visions, a lyric poet indeed, but not a great and living, influence in his generation. Yet such undoubtedly he was, for he effected nothing short of a revolution in the contemporary art of Venice. Can the same be said of Schubert or Keats? The truth is that Giorgione had opportunities of studying human nature such as the others never enjoyed; fortune smiled upon him in his earliest years, and he found himself thrust into the society of the great, who were eager to sit to him for their portraits. How the young Castelfrancan first achieved such distinction is not told us by the historians, but I have ventured to connect his start in life with the presence of the ex-Queen of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro, at Asolo, near Castelfranco; I think it more than probable that her patronage and recommendation launched the young painter on his successful career in Venice. Certain it is that he painted her portrait in his earlier days, and if, as I have sought to prove, Signor Crespi's picture is the long-lost portrait of the great lady, we may well understand the instant success such an achievement won.

Here, if anywhere, we get Giorgione's great interpretative qualities, his penetration into human nature, his reading of character. It is an astonishing thing for one so young to have done, explicable psychologically on the existence of a lively sympathy between the great lady and the poet-painter. Had we other portraits of the fair sex by Giorgione, I venture to think we should find in them his reading of the human soul even more plainly evidenced than in the male portraits we actually possess.[140] For it is clear that the artist was "impressionable," and he would have given us more sympathetic interpretations of the fair sex than those which Titian has left us. The so-called "Portrait of the Physician Parma" (at Vienna) is another instance of Giorgione's grasp of character, the virility and suppressed energy being admirably seized, the conception approaching more nearly to Titian's in its essential dignity than is usually the case with Giorgione's portraits. It is a matter of more regret, therefore, that the likenesses of the Doges Agostino Barberigo and Leonardo Loredano are missing, for in them we might have had specimens of work comparable to the Caterina Cornaro, which, in my opinion at all events, is Giorgione's masterpiece of portraiture.

I have given reasons elsewhere for dating this portrait at latest 1500. It is probably anterior by a few years to the close of the century. This deduction, if correct, has far-reaching consequences: it becomes actually the first modern portrait ever painted, for it is the earliest instance of a portrait instinct with the newer life of the Renaissance. And this brings us to the question: What was Giorgione's relation to that great awakening of the human spirit which we call the Renaissance? Mr. Berenson answers the question thus: "His pictures are the perfect reflex of the Renaissance at its height."[141] If this be taken to mean that Giorgione anticipated the aspirations and ideals of the riper Renaissance, I think we may acquiesce in the phrase; but that the onward movement of this great revival coincided only with the artist's years, and culminated at his death, is not historically correct. The wave had not reached its highest point by the year 1510, and Titian was yet to rise to a fuller and grander expression of the human soul. But Giorgione may rightly be called the Herald of the Renaissance, not only by virtue of the position he holds in Venetian painting, but by priority of appearance on the wider horizon of Italian Art.

Let us take the four great representative exponents of Italian Art at its best, Raphael, Correggio, Leonardo, and Michel Angelo. Chronologically, Giorgione precedes Raphael and Correggio, though Leonardo and Michel Angelo were born before him.[142] But had either of the latter proclaimed a new order of things as early as 1495? Michel Angelo was just twenty years old, and he had not yet carved his "Pieta" for S. Peter's. Leonardo, a man of forty-three, had not completed his "Cenacolo," and the "Mona Lisa" would not be created for another five or six years. Giorgione's "Caterina Cornaro," therefore, becomes the first masterpiece of the earlier Renaissance, and proclaims a revolution in the history of portraiture. In Venice itself we have only to look at the contemporary portraits by Alvise Vivarini and Gentile Bellini, and at the slightly earlier busts by Antonello da Messina, to see what a world of difference in feeling and interpretation there is between them and Giorgione's portraits. What a splendid array of artistic triumphs must have sprung up around this masterpiece! The Cobham portrait and the National Gallery "Poet" are alone left us in much of their pristine splendour, but what of the lost portraits of the great Consalvo and of the Doge Agostino Barberigo, both of which must date from the year 1500?

Giorgione is then the Herald of the Renaissance, and never did genius arise in more fitting season. It was the right psychological moment for such a man, and Giorgione "painted pictures so perfectly in touch with the ripened spirit of the Renaissance that they met with the success which those things only find that at the same moment wake us to the full sense of a need and satisfy it."[143] This is the secret of his overwhelming influence on succeeding painters in Venice,—not, indeed, on his direct pupil Sebastiano del Piombo, and on his friend and associate Titian (who may fairly be called his pupil), but on such different natures as Lotto, Palma, Bonifazio, Bordone, Pordenone, Cariani, Romanino, Dosso Dossi, and a host of smaller men. The School of Giorgione numbers far more adherents than even the School of Leonardo, or the School of Raphael, not because of any direct teaching of the master, but because the "Giorgionesque" spirit was abroad, and the taste of the day required paintings like Giorgione's to satisfy it. But as no revolution can be effected without a struggle, and as there are invariably people opposed to any reform, whether in art or in anything else, we need not be surprised to find the academic faction, represented by the aged Giambellini and his pupils, resisting the progress of the Newer Art. In Giorgione's own lifetime, the exact measure of the opposition is not easy to gauge, but it bore fruit a few years later in the machinations of the official Bellinesque party to keep Titian out of the Ducal Palace when he was seeking State recognition,[144] Nevertheless, Giambellini, even at his age, found it advisable to modulate into the newer key, as may be seen in his "S. Giovanni Crisostomo enthroned," where not only is the conception lyrical and the treatment romantic, but the actual composition is on the lines of the essentially Giorgionesque equilateral triangle. This great altar-piece was painted three years after Giorgione's death, and no more splendid testimonial to the young painter's genius could be found than in the forced homage thus paid to his memory by the octogenarian Giambellini.[145]

We have already, in the course of our survey of Giorgione's pictures, noted the points wherein he was an initiator. "Genre subjects," and "Landscape with figures," as we should say nowadays, found in him their earliest exponent. Before him artists had, indeed, painted figures with a landscape background, but the perfect blend of Nature and human nature was his achievement. This was accomplished by artistic means of the simplest, yet irresistibly subtle in their appeal. The quality of line and the sensuousness of colour nowhere cast their spells over us more strangely than in Giorgione's pictures, and by these means he wrought "effects" such as no artist has surpassed. In these purely pictorial qualities he is supreme, and claims place with the few quintessential artists of the world; to him may be applied by analogy the phrase that Liszt applied to Schubert, "Le musicien le plus poete que jamais."

As an instrument of expression, then, colour is used by Giorgione more naturally and effectively than it is by any of the Venetian painters. It appeals directly to our senses, like rare old stained glass, and seems to be of the very essence of the object itself. An engraving or photograph after such a picture as the Louvre "Pastoral Symphony" fails utterly to convey the sense of exhilaration one feels in presence of the actual painting, simply because the tonic effect of the colour is wholly wanting. The golden shimmer of light, the vibration of the air, the saturation of atmosphere with pure colour are not only ingredients in, but are of the very essence of the creation. It has been well said that almost literally the chief colour on Giorgione's palette was sunlight.[146] His masterly treatment of light and shadow, in which he was scarcely Leonardo's inferior, enabled him to make use of rich and full-bodied colours, which are never gaudy, as sometimes with Bonifazio, or pretty, as with Catena and lesser artists. Nor is he decorative in the way that Veronese excels, or lurid like Tintoretto. Compared with Titian it is as though his colour-chord sounded in seven sharps, whilst the former strikes the key of C natural. A full rich green frequently occurs, as in the Castelfranco "Madonna" and the Louvre picture, and a deep crimson, contrasting with pure white drapery, or with golden flesh-tints, is also characteristic. In the painting of the nude he gives us real flesh and blood; his "Venus" has not the supernatural radiance that Correggio can give his ethereal beings (Giorgione, by the way, never painted an angel, so far as we know), but she glows with actual life, the blood is pulsing through the veins, she is very real. And in this connection we may notice the extraordinary skill with which Giorgione conveys a sense of texture; his painting of rich brocades, and more especially quilted stuffs and satiny folds, cannot be surpassed even by a Terburg.

The quality of line in his work makes itself felt in many ways. Beauty of contour and unbroken continuity of curve is obtained sometimes by sacrificing literal accuracy; a structurally impossible position—as the seated nude figure in the Louvre picture—is deliberately adopted to heighten the effect of line or the balance of composition. The Dresden "Venus," if she arose, would appear of strange proportions; but expressiveness is enhanced by the long flowing contours of the body, so suggestive of repose. We may notice also the emphasis obtained by parallelism; for example, the line of the left arm of the "Venus" follows the curve of the body, a trick which may be often seen in folds of drapery. This picture also illustrates a device to retain continuity of line; the right foot is hidden away so as not to interfere with the contour. Exactly the same thing may be seen in the standing figure in the Louvre "Pastoral Symphony." The trick of making a grand sweep from the top of the head downwards is usually found in the Madonna pictures, where a cunningly placed veil carries the line usually to the sloping shoulders, or else outwards to the point of the elbow, thus introducing the triangular scheme to which Giorgione was particularly partial.

But the question remains, What is Giorgione's position among the world's great men? Is he intellectually to be ranked with the Great Thinkers of all time? Can he aspire to the position which Titian occupies? I fear not Beethoven is infinitely greater than Schubert, Shakespeare than Keats, and so, though in lesser degree, is Titian than Giorgione. I say in lesser degree, because the young poet-painter had something of that profound insight into human nature, something of that wide outlook on life, something of that universal sympathy, and something of that vast influence which distinguishes the greatest intellects of all, and this it is which lessens the distance between him and Titian. Yet Titian is the greater man, for he is "the highest and completest expression of his own age."[147]

Nevertheless, in that narrower sphere of the great painters, who proclaimed the glad tidings of Liberty when the Spirit of Man awoke from Mediaevalism, may we not add yet a fifth voice to the four-part harmony of Raphael, Correggio, Leonardo, and Michel Angelo, the voice of Giorgione, the wondrous youth, "the George of Georges," who heralded the Renaissance of which we are the heirs?

NOTES:

[138] In the Church of San Rocco, Venice, and in Mrs. Gardner's Collection in America.

[139] Keats died at the age of twenty-five; Schubert was thirty-one; Giorgione thirty-three.

[140] The ruined condition of the Borghese "Lady" prevents any just appreciation of the interpretative qualities.

[141] Venetian Painters, p. 30.

[142] Leonardo, 1452-1519; Michel Angelo, 1475-1564; Giorgione, 1477-1510; Raphael, 1483-1520; Correggio, 1494-1534. Correggio, Raphael, and Giorgione died at the ages of forty, thirty-seven, and thirty-three years respectively. Those whom the gods love die young!

[143] Berenson: Venetian Painters, p. 29. I should prefer to substitute "ripening" for "ripened."

[144] Fry: Giovanni Bellini, p. 44.

[145] In S. Giovanni Crisostomo, Venice. It dates from 1513.

[146] Mary Logan: Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court, p. 13.

[147] Berenson: Venetian Painters, p. 48.



APPENDIX I

DOCUMENTS

The following correspondence between Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, and her agent Albano in Venice, is reprinted from the Archivio Storico dell' Arte, 1888, p. 47 (article by Sig. Alessandro Luzio):—

"Sp. Amice noster charissime; Intendemo che in le cose et heredita de Zorzo da Castelfrancho pictore se ritrova una pictura de una nocte, molto bella et singulare; quando cossi fusse, desideraressimo haverla, pero vi pregamo che voliati essere cum Lorenzo da Pavia et qualche altro che habbi judicio et designo, et vedere se l'e cosa excellente, et trovando de si operiati il megio del m'co m. Carlo Valerio, nostro compatre charissimo, et de chi altro vi parera per apostar questa pictura per noi, intendendo il precio et dandone aviso. Et quando vi paresse de concludere il mercato, essendo cosa bona, per dubio non fusse levata da altri, fati quel che ve parera: che ne rendemo certe fareti cum ogni avantagio e fede et cum bona consulta. Ofteremone a vostri piaceri ecc.

"Mantua xxv. oct MDX."

The agent replies a few days later—

"Ill'ma et Exc'ma M'a mia obser'ma

"Ho inteso quanto mi scrive la Ex. V. per una sua de xxv. del passatto, facendome intender haver inteso ritrovarsi in le cosse et eredita del q. Zorzo de Castelfrancho una pictura de una notte, molto bella et singulare; che essendo cossi si deba veder de haverla.

"A che rispondo a V. Ex. che ditto Zorzo mori piu di fanno da peste, et per voler servir quella ho parlato cum alcuni mei amizi, che havevano grandissime praticha cum lui, quali me affirmano non esser in ditta heredita tal pictura. Ben e vero che ditto Zorzo ne feze una a m. Thadeo Contarini, qual per la informatione ho autta non e molto perfecta sichondo vorebe quela. Un'altra pictura de la nocte feze ditto Zorzo a uno Victorio Becharo, qual per quanto intendo e de meglior desegnio et meglio finitta che non e quella del Contarini. Ma esso Becharo, al presente non si atrova in questa terra, et sichondo m'e stato afirmatto ne l'una ne l'altra non sono da vendere per pretio nesuno; pero che li hanno fatte fare per volerle godere per loro; siche mi doglio non poter satisfar al dexiderio de quella ecc.

"Venetijs viii Novembris 1510.

"Servitor

"THADEUS ALBANUS."

From this letter we learn definitely (1) that Giorgione died in October-November 1510; (2) that he died of the plague.

I have pointed out in the text that the above description of the two pictures "de una notte" corresponds with the actual Beaumont and Vienna "Nativities," or "Adoration of the Shepherds," in which I recognise the hand of Giorgione.

* * * * *

The following is the only existing document in Giorgione's own handwriting. It was published by Molmenti in the Bollettino delle Arti, anno ii. No. 2, and reprinted by Conti, p. 50:—

"El se dichiara per el presente come el clarissimo Messer Aluixe di Sesti die a fare a mi Zorzon de Castelfrancho quatro quadri in quadrato con le geste di Daniele in bona pictura su telle, et li telleri sarano soministrati per dito m. Aluixe, il quale doveva stabilir la spexa di detti quadri quando serano compidi et di sua satisfatione entro il presente anno 1508.

"Io Zorzon de Castelfrancho di mia man scrissi la presente in Venetia li 13 febrar 1508."

Whether or no Giorgione ever completed these four square canvases with the story of Daniel is unknown. There is no trace of any such pictures in modern times.



APPENDIX II

DID TITIAN LIVE TO BE NINETY-NINE YEARS OLD?

Reprinted from the "Nineteenth Century" Jan. 1902

There is something fascinating in the popular belief that Titian, the greatest of all Venetian painters, reached the patriarchal age of ninety-nine years, and was actively at work up to the day of his death. The text-books love to tell us the story of the great unfinished "Pieta" with its pathetic inscription:

Quod Titianus inchoatum reliquit Palma reverenter absolvit Deoq. dicavit opus;

and traveller, guide-book in hand, and moralist, philosophy in head, alike muse upon a phenomenon so startlingly at variance with common experience.[148]

But, sentiment aside, is there any historical evidence that Titian ever worked at his art in his hundredth year? that he even attained such a venerable age? The answer is of wider consequence than the mere question implies, for on the correct determination of Titian's own chronology depends the history of the development of the entire Venetian school of painting in the early years of the sixteenth century. I say early, because it is the date of Titian's birth, and not that of his death, which I shall endeavour to fix; the latter event is known beyond possibility of doubt to have occurred in August 1576. The question, therefore, to consider is, what justification, if any, is there for the universal belief that Titian was born in 1476-7, just a hundred years previously?

Anyone, I think, who has ever looked into the history of Titian's career must have been struck by the fact that for the first thirty-five years of his life (according to the usual chronology) there is absolutely no documentary record relating to him, whether in the Venetian archives or elsewhere. Not a single letter, not a single contract, not a single mention of his name occurs from which we can so much as affirm his existence before the year 1511.

On the 2nd of December in that year "Io tician di Cador Dpntore" gives a receipt for money paid him on completion of some frescoes at Padua, and from this date on there are frequent letters and documents in existence right down to 1576, the year of his death. Is it not somewhat strange that the first thirty-five years of his life (as is commonly believed) should be a total blank so far as records go? The fact becomes the more inexplicable when we find that during these early years some of his finest work is alleged to have been executed, and he must—if we accept the chronology of his biographers—have been well known to and highly esteemed by his contemporaries.[149] Moreover, it is not for want of diligent search amongst the archives that nothing has been found, for Italian and German students have alike sought, but in vain, to discover any documentary evidence relating to his career before 1511.

The absence of any such trustworthy record has had its natural result. Conjecture has run riot, and no two writers are agreed on the subject of the nature and development of Titian's earlier art. This is the second disquieting fact which any careful student has to face. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Titian's most exhaustive biographers,[150] have filled up the first thirty-five years of his career in their own way, but their chronology has found no favour with later writers, such as Mr. Claude Phillips in England[151] or Dr. Georg Gronau in Germany,[152] both of whom have arrived at independent conclusions. Morelli again had his theories on the subject, and M. Lafenestre[153] has his, and the ordinary gallery catalogue is usually content to state inaccurate facts without further ado.

Now, if all these conscientious writers arrive at results so widely divergent, either their logic or their data must be wrong! One and all assume that Titian lived into his hundredth year, and, therefore, was born in 1476-7; and starting with this theory as a fact, they have tried to fit in Vasari's account as best they can, and each has found a different solution of the problem. There is only one way out of this chaos of conjectures—we must see what is the evidence for the "centenarian" tradition, and if it can be shown that Titian was really born later than 1476-7, then the silence of all records about him during an alleged period of thirty-five years will become at once more intelligible, and we may be able to explain some of the other anomalies which at present confront Titian's biographers.

I propose to take the evidence in strictly chronological order.

The oldest contemporary account of Titian's career is furnished by Lodovico Dolce in his L'Aretino, o dialogo della pittura, which was published at Venice in 1557. Dolce knew Titian personally, and wrote his treatise just at the time when the painter was at the zenith of his fame. He is our sole authority for certain incidents of Titian's early career: it will be well, therefore, to quote in full the opening paragraphs of his narrative:

"Being born at Cadore of honourable parents, he was sent when a child of nine years old by his father to Venice to the house of his father's brother ... in order that he might be put under some proper master to study painting; his father having perceived in him even at that tender age strong marks of genius towards the art.... His uncle directly carried the child to the house of Sebastiano, father of the gentilissimo Valerio and of Francesco Zuccati (distinguished masters of the art of mosaic, by them brought to that perfection in which we now see the best pictures) to learn the principles of the art. From them he was removed to Gentile Bellini, brother of Giovanni, but much inferior to him, who at that time was at work with his brother in the Grand Council-Chamber. But Titian, impelled by Nature to greater excellence and perfection in his art, could not endure following the dry and laboured manner of Gentile, but designed with boldness and expedition. Whereupon Gentile told him he would make no progress in painting, because he diverged so much from the old style. Thereupon Titian left the stupid (goffo) Gentile, and found means to attach himself to Giovanni Bellini; but not perfectly pleased with his manner, he chose Giorgio da Castel Franco. Titian then drawing and painting with Giorgione, as he was called, became in a short time so accomplished in art, that when Giorgione was painting the facade of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German Merchants, which looks towards the Grand Canal, Titian was allotted the other side which faces the market-place, being at the time scarcely twenty years old. Here he represented a Judith of wonderful design and colour, so remarkable, indeed, that when the work came to be uncovered, it was commonly thought to be the work of Giorgione, and all the latter's friends congratulated him as being by far the best thing he had produced. Whereupon Giorgione, in great displeasure, replied that the work was from the hand of his pupil, who showed already how he could surpass his master, and, what was more, Giorgione shut himself up for some days at home, as if in despair, seeing that a young man knew more that he did."

Fortunately, the exact date can be fixed when the frescoes on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi were painted, for we have original records preserved from which we learn the work was begun in 1507 and completed towards the close of 1508.[154] If Titian, then, was "scarcely twenty years old" in 1507-8, he must have been born in 1488-9. Dolce particularly emphasises his youthfulness at the time, calling him un giovanetto, a phrase he twice applies to him in the next paragraph, when he is describing the famous altar-piece of the 'Assunta,' the commission for which, as we know from other sources, was given in 1516.

"Not long afterwards he was commissioned to paint a large picture for the High Altar of the Church of the Frati Minori, where Titian, quite a young man (pur giovanetto), painted in oil the Virgin ascending to Heaven.... This was the first public work which he painted in oil, and he did it in a very short time, and while still a young man (e giovanetto)."

This phrase could hardly be applied to a man over thirty, so that Titian's birth cannot reasonably be dated before 1486 or so, and is much more likely to fall later. The previous deduction that it was 1488-9 is thus further strengthened.

The evidence, then, of Dolce, writing in 1557, is clear and consistent: Titian was born in 1488-9. Now let us see what is stated by Vasari, who is the next oldest authority.

The first edition of the Lives appeared in 1550—that is, just prior to Dolce's Dialogue—but a revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1568, in which important evidence occurs as to Titian's age. After enumerating certain pictures by the great Venetian, Vasari adds:

"(a) All these works, with many others which I omit, to avoid prolixity, have been executed up to the present age of our artist, which is above seventy-six years.... In the year 1566, when Vasari, the writer of the present history, was at Venice, he went to visit Titian, as one who was his friend, and found him, although then very old, still with the pencil in his hand, and painting busily."[155]

According to Vasari, then, Titian was "above seventy-six years" when the second edition of the Lives was written, and as from the explicit nature of the evidence this must have been between 1566, when he visited Venice, and January 1568, when his book was published, it follows that Titian was "above seventy-six years" in 1566-7—in other words, that he was born 1489-90.

Still confining ourselves to Vasari, we find two other passages bearing on the question:

"(b) Titian was born in the year 1480 at Cadore.[156]

"(c) About the year 1507 Giorgione da Castel Franco began to give to his works unwonted softness and relief, painting them in a very beautiful manner.... Having seen the manner of Giorgione, Titian early resolved to abandon that of Gian Bellino, although well grounded therein. He now, therefore, devoted himself to this purpose, and in a short time so closely imitated Giorgione that his pictures were sometimes taken for those of that master.... At the time when Titian began to adopt the manner of Giorgione, being then not more than eighteen, he took the portrait," etc.[157]

This passage (c) makes Titian "not more than eighteen about the year 1507," and fixes the date of his birth as 1489-90, therein agreeing with the previous deduction at which we arrived when examining the passage in Vasari's second edition. Thus in two places out of three Vasari is consistent in fixing 1489-90 as the date. How, then, explain (b), which explicitly gives 1480?

Anyone conversant with Vasari's inaccuracies will hardly be surprised to find that this statement is dismissed by all Titian's biographers as manifestly a mistake. Moreover, it is inconsistent with the two passages just quoted, and either they are wrong or 1480 is a misprint for 1489. Now, from the nature of the evidence recorded by Vasari, it cannot be a matter for any doubt which is the more trustworthy statement. On the one hand, he speaks as an eye-witness of Titian's old age, and is careful to record the exact year he visited Venice and the age of the painter; on the other hand, he makes a bald statement which he certainly cannot have verified, and which is inconsistent with his own experience! In any case, in Vasari's text the evidence is two to one in favour of 1489-90 as the right date, and thus we come to the agreeable conclusion that our two oldest authorities, Dolce and Vasari, are at one in fixing Titian's birth between 1488 and 1490—in other words, about 1489.

So far, then, all is clear, and as we know from later and indisputable evidence that Titian died in 1576, it follows that he only attained the age of eighty-seven and not ninety-nine. Whence, then, comes the story of the ninety-nine years? From none other than Titian himself, and to this piece of evidence we must next turn, following out a strict chronological order.

In 1571—that is, three years after Vasari's second edition was published—Titian addresses a letter to Philip the Second of Spain in these terms:[158]

"Most potent and invincible King,—I think your Majesty will have received by this the picture of 'Lucretia and Tarquin' which was to have been presented by the Venetian Ambassador. I now come with these lines to ask your Majesty to deign to command that I should be informed as to what pleasure it has given. The calamities of the present times, in which every one is suffering from the continuance of war, force me to this step, and oblige me at the same time to ask to be favoured with some kind proof of your Majesty's grace, as well as with some assistance from Spain or elsewhere, since I have not been able for years past to obtain any payment either from the Naples grant, or from my ordinary pension. The state of my affairs is indeed such that I do not know how to live in this my old age, devoted as it entirely is to the service of your Catholic Majesty, and to no other. Not having for eighteen years past received a quattrino for the paintings which I delivered from time to time, and of which I forward a list by this opportunity to the secretary Perez, I feel assured that your Majesty's infinite clemency will cause a careful consideration to be made of the services of an old servant of the age of ninety-five, by extending to him some evidence of munificence and liberality. Sending two prints of the design of the Beato Lorenzo, and most humbly recommending myself,

"I am Your Catholic Majesty's

"most devoted, humble servant,

"TITIANO VECELLIO.

"From Venice, the 1st of August, 1571."

Here, then, is Titian himself, in the year 1571, declaring that he is ninety-five years of age—in other words, dating his birth back to 1476—that is, some thirteen years earlier than Dolce and Vasari imply was the case. A flagrant discrepancy of evidence! In similar strain he thus addresses the king again five years later:[159]

"Your Catholic and Royal Majesty,—The infinite benignity with which your Catholic Majesty—by natural habit—is accustomed to gratify all such as have served and still serve your Majesty faithfully, enboldens me to appear with the present (letter) to recall myself to your royal memory, in which I believe that my old and devoted service will have kept me unaltered. My prayer is this: twenty years have elapsed and I have never had any recompense for the many pictures sent on divers occasions to your Majesty; but having received intelligence from the Secretary Antonio Perez of your Majesty's wish to gratify me, and having reached a great old age not without privations, I now humbly beg that your Majesty will deign, with accustomed benevolence, to give such directions to ministers as will relieve my want. The glorious memory of Charles the Fifth, your Majesty's father, having numbered me amongst his familiar, nay, most faithful servants, by honouring me beyond my deserts with the title of cavaliere, I wish to be able, with the favour and protection of your Majesty—true portrait of that immortal emperor—to support as it deserves the name of a cavaliere, which is so honoured and esteemed in the world; and that it may be known that the services done by me during many years to the most serene house of Austria have met with grateful return, to spend what remains of my days in the service of your Majesty. For this I should feel the more obliged, as I should thus be consoled in my old age, whilst praying to God to concede to your Majesty a long and happy life with increase of his divine grace and exaltation of your Majesty's Kingdom. In the meanwhile I expect from the royal benevolence of your Majesty the fruits of the favour I desire, with due reverence and humility, and kissing your sacred hands,

"I am Your Catholic Majesty's

"most humble and devoted servant,

"TITIANO VECELLIO.

"From Venice, the 27th of February, 1576."

This is the last letter we have of Titian, who died in August of this year, according to his own showing, in his hundredth year.

Now what reliance can be placed on this statement? On the one hand, we have the evidence of two independent writers, Dolce and Vasari, both personally acquainted with Titian, and both agreeing by inference that the date of his birth was about 1489. Both had ample opportunity to get at the truth, and Vasari is particularly explicit in recording the exact date when he visited Titian in Venice and the age the painter had then reached. Yet five years later Titian is found stating that he is ninety-five, and not eighty-two as we should expect! Perhaps the best comment is made by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, who significantly remark immediately after the last letter: "Titian's appeal to the benevolence of the King of Spain looks like that of a garrulous old gentleman proud of his longevity, but hoping still to live for many years."[160] Exactly! The occasion could well be improved by a little timely exaggeration well calculated to appeal to the sympathies and "infinite benignity" of the monarch, and if, when the writer had actually reached the respectable age of eighty-two, he wrote himself down as ninety-five, who would gainsay him? It added point to his appeal—that was the chief thing—and as to accuracy, well, Titian was not the man to be over-scrupulous when his own interests were involved. But even though the statement were not deliberately made to heighten the effect of an appeal, we must in any case make allowances for the natural proneness to exaggerate their age which usually characterises men of advanced years, so that any ex parte statement of this kind must be received with due caution. Where, moreover, as in the present case, we have evidence of a directly contradictory kind furnished by independent witnesses, whose declarations in this respect are presumably disinterested, such ex parte statements are on the face of them unreliable. The balance of evidence in this case appears to rest on the side of the older historians, Dolce and Vasari, whose statements, as I hold, are in the circumstances more reliable than the picturesque exaggeration of a man of advanced years.

I claim, therefore, that any account of Titian's life based solely on such flimsy evidence as to his age as is found in this letter to Philip the Second is, to say the least, open to grave doubt. The whole superstructure raised by modern writers on this uncertain foundation is full of flaws and incongruities, and I am fully persuaded the future historian will have to begin de novo in any attempt at a chronological reconstruction of Titian's career. The gap of thirty-five years down to 1511 may prove after all less by twelve or thirteen years than people think, so that the young Titian naturally enough first emerges into view at the age of twenty-two and not thirty-five.

But we must not anticipate results, for there is still the evidence of the later writers of the seventeenth century to consider. Two of these declare that Titian was born in 1477. The first of these, Tizianello, a collateral descendant of the great painter, published his little Compendio in 1622, wherein he gives a sketchy and imperfect biography; the other, Ridolfi, repeats the date in his Meraviglie dell' Arte, published in 1648. The latter writer is notoriously unreliable in other respects, and it is quite likely this is merely an instance of copying from Tizianello, whose unsupported statement is chiefly of value as showing that the "centenarian" theory had started within fifty years of Titian's death. But again we ask: Why should the evidence of a seventeenth-century writer be preferred to the personal testimony of those who actually knew Titian himself, especially when Vasari gives us precise information with which Dolce's independent account is in perfect agreement? No doubt the great age to which Titian certainly attained was exaggerated in the next generation after his death, but it is a remarkable fact that the contemporary eulogies, mostly in poetic form, which appeared on the occasion of his decease, do not allude to any such phenomenal longevity.[161]

Nevertheless, Ridolfi's statement that Titian was born in 1477 is commonly quoted as if there were no better and earlier evidence in existence, and, indeed, it is a matter of surprise that conscientious modern biographers have not looked more carefully at the original authorities instead of being content to follow tradition, and I must earnestly plead for a reconsideration of the question of Titian's age by the future historians of Venetian painting.[162]

If, as I believe, Titian was born in or about 1489 instead of 1476-7, it follows that he must have been Giorgione's junior by at least twelve years—a most important deduction—and it also follows that he cannot have produced any work of consequence before, say, 1505, at the age of sixteen, and he will have died at eighty-seven and not in his hundredth year. The alteration in date would help to explain the silence of all records about him before 1511, when he would have been only twenty-two and not thirty-five years old; it would fully account for his name not being mentioned by Duerer in his famous letter of 1506, wherein he refers to the painters of Venice, and it would equally account for the absence of his name from the commission to paint the Fondaco frescoes in 1507-8, for he would have been employed simply as Giorgione's young assistant. The fact that in 1511 he signs himself simply "Io tician di Cador Dpntore" and not Maestro would be more intelligible in a young man of twenty-two than in an accomplished master of thirty-five, and the character of his letter addressed to the Senate in 1513 would be more natural to an ambitious aspirant of twenty-four than to a man in his maturity of thirty-seven.[163]

Such are some of the obvious results of a change of date, but the larger question as to the development of Titian's art must be left to the future historian, for the importance of fixing a date lies in the application thereof.[164] HERBERT COOK.

THE DATE OF TITIAN'S BIRTH

Reply by Dr. Georg Gronau. Translated from the "Repertorium fuer Kunstwissenschaft," vol. xxiv., 6th part

In the January number of the Nineteenth Century appears an article by Herbert Cook under the title, "Did Titian live to be Ninety-Nine Years Old?" The interrogation already suggests that the author comes to a negative conclusion. It is, perhaps, not without interest to set forth the reasons advanced by the English connoisseur and to submit them to adverse criticism.

(Here follows an abstract of the article.)

The reasoning, as will have been seen, is not altogether free from doubt. It has been usual hitherto in historical investigations to call in question the assertions of a man about his own life only when thoroughly weighty reasons justified such a course. Is the evidence of a Dolce and of a Vasari so free from all objection that it outweighs Titian's personal statement? Before answering this question it should be pointed out that we possess two further statements of contemporary writers on the subject of Titian's age, statements which have escaped the notice of Mr. Cook. One is to be found in a letter from the Spanish Consul in Venice, Thomas de Cornoga, to Philip II., dated 8th December 1567 (published in the very important work by Zarco del Valle[165]). After informing the king of Titian's usual requests on the subject of his pension, and so on, he continues: "y con los 85 annos de su edad servira a V.M. hasta la muerte."

Somewhere, then, in the very year in which Titian, according to Vasari, was "above seventy-six years of age," he seems to have been eighty-five, according to the report of another and quite independent witness, and if so, he would have been born about 1482.

We have then three definite statements:

Vasari (1566 or 1567) says "over 76" The Consul (1567) " "85" Titian himself (1571) " "95"

This new information, instead of helping us, only serves to make still greater confusion.

The other piece of evidence not mentioned by Mr. Cook was written only a few years after Titian's death. Borghini says in his Riposo, 1584: "Mori ultimamente di vecchiezza (!not, then, of the plague?), essendo d'eta d'anni 98 o 99, l'anno 1576." ... This is the first time that the traditional statement as to the master's age appears in literature. In this state of things it is worth while to look closer into the evidence of Dolce and Vasari to see if they are not after all the most trustworthy witnesses.

It is always held to be a mistake to take rather vague statements quite literally, as Mr. Cook has done, and to build thereon further conclusions. When Dolce says that Titian painted with Giorgione at the Fondaco, "non avendo egli allora appena venti anni," he is only trying to make out that his hero, here as everywhere, was a most unusual person (the whole dialogue is a glorification of the master). For the same reason he makes the following remark, which we can absolutely prove to be false:—the Assumption (he says) "fu la prima opera pubblica, che a olio facesse." Now at least one work of Titian's was, then, already to be seen in a public place—viz. the "St. Mark Enthroned, with Four Saints," in Santo Spirito, afterwards removed to the sacristy of the Salute. In other points, too, Dolce can be convicted of small errors and misrepresentations, partly on literary grounds, partly due to his desire to enhance the praise of Titian.

Vasari, again, should only be cited as witness when he speaks of works of art which he has actually seen. In such a case, apart from slips, he is always a trustworthy guide. Directly, however, he goes into biographical details or questions of chronology accuracy becomes nearly always a secondary matter. Titian's biography offers an excellent and most instructive example of this. Vasari mentions first the birth and upbringing of the boy, then he speaks of Giorgione and the Fondaco frescoes, and goes on: "dopo la quale opera fece un quadro grande che oggi e nella salla di messer Andrea Loredano.... Dopo in casa di messer Giovanni D'Anna ... fece il suo ritratto ...; ed un quadro di Ecce Homo, ..." and he goes on, "L'anno poi 1507...." If it had not been that one of these pictures, once in the possession of Giovanni D'Anna, had been preserved (now in the Vienna Gallery), and that it bears in a conspicuous place the date 1543, it would be recorded in all biographies of Titian that he painted in 1507 an "Ecce Homo" for this Giovanni D'Anna.

If one goes further into Vasari's account we read that Titian published his "Triumph of Faith" in 1508. "Dopo condottosi Tiziano a Vicenza, dipinse a fresco sotto la loggetta ... il giudizio di Salamone. Appresso tomato a Venezia, dipinse la facciata de' Grimani; e in Padoa nella chiesa di Sant' Antonio alcune storie ... de fatti di quel santo: e in quella di Santo Spirito fece ... un San Marco a sedere in mezzo a certi Santi." We now know on documentary evidence that the Vicenza fresco (which was destroyed later) dated from 1521, and similarly that the frescoes at Padua were painted in 1511, whilst the date of the S. Mark picture may be fixed with probability at 1504.

These examples prove how inexact Vasari is here once more. But it may be objected, supposing that he is inaccurate in statements which refer back, can he not be in the right in a case where he comes back, so to speak, straight from visiting Titian and writes down his observation about the master's actual age? To be sure; but when we find that so many other similar notices of Vasari are wrong, even those that refer to people whom he personally knew, we lose faith altogether. In turning over the leaves of the sixth volume of the Sansoni edition of Vasari, in which only his contemporaries, some of them closely connected, too, with him, are spoken of, we find the following incorrect statements:—

P. 99. Tribolo was 65 years old (in reality only 50). P. 209. Bugiardini died at 75 (really 79). P. 288. Pontormo at 65 (he died actually in his 63rd year). P. 564. Giovanni da Udine at 70 (really 77).

A still more glaring instance is to be found when Vasari not only makes misstatements about his own life but is actually out by several years in giving his own age. One and the same event—viz. his journey with Cardinal Passerini to Florence—is given in his own autobiography to the year 1524, in the "Life of Salviati," to the year 1523, and in the "Life of Michael Angelo" to 1525. When he speaks of himself in the same passage in the "Life of Salviati" as the "putto, che allora non aveva piu di nove anni," he is making a mistake of at least three years in his own age. And not less delightful is it to read in the "Life of Giovanni da Udine": "Giorgio Vasari, giovinetto di diciotto anni, quando serviva il duca Alessandro de' Medici suo primo signore l'anno 1535." We are obviously not dealing with Messer Giorgio's strongest point, for, as a matter of fact, he was at that time twenty-four years of age! The same false statement of age is found again in his own biography (vii. p. 656, with the variation, "poco piu di diciotto anni").

But I think these instances suffice to prove how little one dare build on such assertions of Vasari. Who dare say if Titian was really only seventy-six in 1566 when the Aretine visited him?

And now a few remarks on the other points raised by Mr. Cook. As a fact, it is an astonishing thing that we have no documentary evidence about Titian before 1511; but does he not share this fate with very many of his great countrymen, with Bellini, Giorgione, Sebastiano, and others? An unfriendly chance has left us entirely in the dark as to the early years of nearly all the great Venetian painters. That Duerer makes no mention of Titian's name in his letters gives no cause for surprise, for even the most celebrated of the younger artists, Giorgione, is not alluded to, and of all those with Bellini, whose fame outshone even then that of all others, only Barbari is mentioned. That Titian's name does not occur in the documents about the Fondaco frescoes may be due to the fact that Giorgione alone was commissioned to undertake the frescoes for the magistrates, and that the latter painter in his turn brought his associate Titian into the work.

Mr. Cook says that Titian still signed himself in 1511 "Dipintore" instead of "Maestro." I am not aware whether in this respect definite regulations or customs were usual in Venice.[166] At any rate, the painter is still described in official documents as late as 1518 as "ser Tizian depentor" (Lorenzi, "Monumenti," No. 366), when, even according to Mr. Cook's theory, he must have been thirty years old; and he is actually so called in 1528 (ibid. No. 403), after appearing in several intermediate documents as "maestro" (Nos. 373, 377). If this argument, however, proves unsound, the last point—viz. that the well-known petition to the senate in 1513 reads more like that of a man of twenty-four than one of thirty-seven—must be left to the hypothesis of individual conjecture.

Must we really close these very long inquiries by confessing they are beyond our ken? It almost seems so. For, with regard to the testimony afforded by family documents, Dr. Jacobi (whose labours were utilised by Crowe and Cavalcaselle) so conscientiously examined all that is left, that a discovery in this direction is not to be looked for. Is the statement of Tizianello that Titian's year of birth was 1477 to be rejected without further question when we remember that, as a relative of the painter, he could have had in 1622 access to documents possibly since lost?

Under these circumstances the only thing left to do is to question the works of Titian. Of these, two can be dated, not indeed with certainty, but with some degree of probability: the dedicatory painting of the Bishop of Pesaro with the portrait of Alexander VI. of 1502-03, and the picture of St. Mark, already mentioned, of the year 1504. Both are, to judge by the style, clearly early works, and both can be connected with definite historical events of the years just mentioned. That these paintings, however, could be the work of a fourteen- to fifteen-year-old artist Mr. Cook will also admit to be impossible.

Much, far too much, in the story of Venetian painting must, for want of definite information, be left to conjecture; and however unsatisfactory it is, we must make the confession that we know as little about the date of the birth of the greatest of the Venetians as we know of Giorgione's, Sebastiano's, Palma's, and the rest. But supposing all of a sudden information turned up giving us the exact date of Titian's birth, would the picture of the development of Venetian painting be any the different for it? In no wise. The relation to one another of the individual artists of the younger generation is so clearly to be read in each man's work, that no external particulars, however interesting they might be on other grounds, could make the smallest difference. Titian's relations with Giorgione especially could not be otherwise represented than has been long determined, and that whether Titian was born in 1476, 1477, 1480, or even two or three years later.[167] GEORG GRONAU.

WHEN WAS TITIAN BORN?

Reply to Dr. Gronau. Reprinted from "Repertorium fuer Kunstwissenschaft," vol. xxv., parts 1 and 2

I must thank Dr. Georg Gronau for his very fair reply, published in these pages[168] (to my article in the Nineteenth Century on the subject of Titian's age[169]). He has also most kindly pointed out two pieces of contemporary evidence which had escaped my notice, and although neither of these passages is conclusive proof one way or the other, they deserve to be reckoned with in arriving at a decision.

Dr. Gronau formulates the evidence shortly thus:

Vasari in 1566 or 1567 says Titian is over 76 The Spanish Consul in 1567 " " 85 Titian himself in 1571 " he is " 95

and he adds that this new piece of evidence—viz. the letter of the Spanish Consul to King Philip—instead of helping us, only makes the confusion worse.

What then are we to think when yet another—a fourth—contemporary statement turns up, differing from any of the three just quoted? Yet such a letter exists, and I am happy in my turn to point out this fresh piece of evidence, in the hope that instead of making the confusion worse, it will help us to arrive at some decision.

On October the 15th, 1564, Garcia Hernandez, Envoy in Venice from King Philip II., writes to the King his master that Titian begged that His Majesty would condescend to order that he should be paid what was due to him from the court and from Milan.... For the rest the painter was in fine condition, and quite capable of work, and this was the time, if ever, to get "other things" from him, as according to some people who knew him, Titian was about ninety years old, though he did not show it, and for money everything was to be had of him.[170]

In 1564 then the Spanish Envoy writes that Titian was said to be about ninety. Let us then enlarge Dr. Gronau's table by this additional statement, and further complete it by including the earliest piece of evidence, the statement of Dolce in 1557 that Titian was scarcely twenty when he worked at the Fondaco de' Tedeschi frescoes (1507-8). The year of Titian's birth thus works out:

Writing in 1557, Dolce makes out Titian was born about 1489 " " 1566-7, Vasari " " " 1489 " " 1564, Spanish Envoy " " 1474 " " 1567, Spanish Consul " " 1482 " " 1571, Titian himself " " 1476

Now it is curious to notice that the last three statements are all made in letters to King Philip, either by Titian himself, or at his request by the Spanish agents.

It is curious to notice these statements as to Titian's great age occur in begging letters.[171]

It is curious to notice they are mutually contradictory.

What are we to conclude?

Surely that the Spanish Envoy, the Spanish Consul, and Titian himself, out of their own mouths stand convicted of inconsistency of statement, and further that they betray an identical motive underlying each representation—viz. an appeal ad misericordiam.

Before, however, contrasting the value of the evidence as found in these Spanish letters with the evidence as found in Dolce and Vasari, let us note two points in these letters.

Garcia Hernandez, the Spanish Envoy, writes: "According to some people who knew him, Titian was about ninety years old, though he did not show it." Now, if Titian was really about ninety in the year 1564, he will have lived to the age of one hundred and two, a feat of longevity of which no one has ever accused him! Apart, therefore, from the healthy scepticism which Hernandez betrays in this letter, we may certainly conclude that "some people who knew him" were exaggerating Titian's age.

Secondly, Titian's letter of 1571 says he is ninety-five years old. Titian's similar letter of 1576, the year of his death, omits to say he is one hundred. Surely a strange omission, considering that he refers to his old age three times in this one letter.[172] Does not the second letter correct the inexactness of the first? and so Titian's statement goes for nothing?

The collective evidence, then, of these Spanish letters amounts to this, that, in the words of the Envoy, "for money everything was to be had of Titian," and accordingly any statement as to his great age when thus made for effect must be treated with the greatest suspicion.

But is the evidence of Dolce and Vasari any more trustworthy? Dr. Gronau is at pains to show that both these writers often made mistakes in their dates, a fact which no one can dispute. Their very incorrectness is the more reason however for trusting them in this instance, for they happen to agree about the date of Titian's birth; and, although neither of them expressly gives the year 1489, they indicate separate and independent events in his life, the one, Dolce, at the beginning, the other, Vasari, at the end, which when looked into give the same result.

Moreover, be Dolce ever so anxious to cry up his hero Titian, and make him out to have been precocious, and be Vasari ever so inexact in his chronology, we must remember that, when both of them wrote, the presumption of unusual longevity had not arisen, and that their evidence therefore is less likely to be prejudiced in this respect than the evidence given in obituary notices, such as occurs in Borghini's Riposo of 1584, and in the later writers like Tizianello and Ridolfi.

That Borghini therefore says Titian was ninety-eight or ninety-nine when he died, and that Tizianello and Ridolfi, thirty-eight and sixty-four years later respectively, put him down at ninety-nine, is by no means proof that such was the case. It would seem that there had been some speculation before and after Titian's death as to his exact age; that no one quite knew for certain; and that Titian with the credulousness of old age had come to regard himself as well-nigh a centenarian. Be this as it may, I still hold that the evidence of Dolce and Vasari that Titian's birth occurred in 1489 is more trustworthy than either the evidence found in the three Spanish letters, or the evidence as given in the obituary notices of Borghini and others.

One word more. If Titian was born in 1489, instead of 1476-7, it does make a great difference in the story of his own career; and, what is more, the history of Venetian art in the early sixteenth century, as it centres round Giorgione, Palma, and Titian, will have to be carefully reconsidered.

HERBERT COOK.

NOTES:

[148] The picture now hangs in the Academia at Venice.

[149] e.g. the "Sacred and Profane Love" (so-called) in the Borghese Gallery; the "S. Mark" of the Salute; the "Concert" in the Pitti; the "Tribute Money" at Dresden; the "Madonna of the Cherries" at Vienna, etc., which one or other of his biographers assign to the years 1500-1510.

[150] The Life and Times of Titian, 2 vols., 1881.

[151] The Earlier and Later Work of Titian. Portfolio, October 1897 and July 1898.

[152] Tizian. Berlin, 1901.

[153] La Vie et l'Oeuvre de Titien: Paris, 1886.

[154] See Crowe and Cavalcaselle: Titian, i. 85. The fact that Titian's name does not occur in these records is curious and suggestive.

[155] Ed. Sansoni, p. 459. The translation is that of Blashfield and Hopkins. Bell, 1897.

[156] Ibid. p. 425.

[157] Ibid. p. 428.

[158] The translation is that of Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Titian, ii. 391. The original is given by them at p. 538.

[159] Quoted from Crowe and Cavalcaselle.

[160] Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Titian, ii. 409.

[161] There is a collection of these in a volume in the British Museum.

[162] Before the discovery of the letter to Philip, Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle were quite prepared to admit that Titian was born "after 1480" (vide N. Italian Painting, ii. 119, 120). Unfortunately, they took the evidence of the letter as final, but finding themselves chronologically in difficulties, they shrewdly remark in their Titian, i. 38, note: "The writers of these lines thought, and still think, Titian younger than either Giorgione or Palma. They were, however, inclined to transpose Titian's birthday to a later date than 1477, rather than put back those of Palma and Giorgione to an earlier period, and in this they made a mistake." Perhaps they were not so far wrong after all!

[163] For this most amusing letter see Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Titian, i. p. 153.

[164] The evidence afforded by Titian's own portraits of himself (at Berlin and in the Uffizi) is inconclusive, as we do not know the exact years they were painted. The portrait at Madrid, painted 1562, might represent a man of seventy-three or eighty-six, it is hard to say which. But there is a woodcut of 1550 (vide Gronau, p. 164) which surely shows Titian at the age of sixty-one rather than seventy-four; and, finally, Paul Veronese's great "Marriage at Cana" (in the Louvre), which was painted between June 1562 and September 1563, distinctly points to Titian being then a man of seventy-four and not eighty-seven. He is represented, as is well known, seated in the group of musicians in the centre, and playing the contrabasso.

[165] Jahrbuch der Sammlungen des A.H. Kaiserhauses, vii. p. 221 ff 1888.

[166] Dr. Ludwig had the kindness to write to me on this subject: "Among the thousands of signatures of painters which I have seen I have never come across the signature Maestro. Of course, someone else can describe a painter as Master; he himself always subscribes himself pittor, pictor, or depentor."

[167] Dr. Gronau further points out (in a letter recently sent to the writer) that Titian, writing to the emperor in 1545, says: "I should have liked to take them (i.e. the paintings) to your Majesty in person, but that my age and the length of the journey forbade such a course" (C. and C. ii. 103). Writing also in 1548 to Granvella he refers to his "vechia vita." Would not such expressions (asks Dr. Gronau) be more applicable to a man of sixty-eight and seventy-one respectively than to one of only fifty-six and fifty-nine?

[168] XXIV. Band. 6 Heft, p. 457.

[169] January 1902, pp. 123-130.

[170] Quoted from Crowe and Cavalcaselle. II. 344. The Spanish original is given at p. 535.

[171] I have quoted Titian's letter in full in the Nineteenth Century. That of the Spanish Consul is given in the Jahrbuch der Sammlungen des A.H. Kaiserhauses, vii. p. 221, from which I extract the passage: "El dicho Ticiano besa pies y manos de V.M., y suplica umilmente a V.M. mande le sea pagado lo que le ha corrido de las pensiones de que V.M. le tiene echo merced en Milan y en esa corte, y la trata de Napoles, y con los 85 anos de su edad servira a V.M. hasta la muerte."

[172] I have quoted this letter also in full in the Nineteenth Century. I am indebted to M. Salomon Reinach for making this point (Chronique des Arts, Feb. 15, 1902, p. 53, where he expresses himself a convert to my views).



CATALOGUE OF THE WORKS OF GIORGIONE

ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE GALLERIES IN WHICH THEY ARE CONTAINED

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY



BUDA-PESTH GALLERY.

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN. [No. 94.]

Esterhazy Collection. (See p. 31.)

TWO FIGURES STANDING. [No. 95.]

Copy of a portion of Giorgione's lost picture of the "Birth of Paris." These are the two shepherds. (See p. 46.)

The whole composition was engraved by Th. von Kessel for the Theatrum pictorium under Giorgione's name. The original picture was seen and described by the Anonimo in 1525.



VIENNA GALLERY.

EVANDER AND HIS SON PALLAS SHOWING TO AENEAS THE FUTURE SITE OF ROME. Canvas, 4 ft. x 4 ft. 8 in. [No. 16.]

Seen by the Anonimo in 1525, in Venice, and said by him to have been finished by Sebastiano del Piombo. (See p. 12.)

Collection of the Archduke Leopold William, and registered in the inventory of 1659.

ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS, or NATIVITY. Wood, 3 ft. x 3 ft. 10 in. [No. 23.]

Inferior replica by Giorgione of the Beaumont picture in London.

I have sought to identify this piece with the picture "da una Nocte," painted by Giorgione for Taddeo Contarini. (See p. 24 and Appendix, where the original document is quoted.)

From the Collection of the Archduke Leopold William, and registered in the inventory of 1659 as a Giorgione.

VIRGIN AND CHILD. Wood, 2 ft. 2 in. x 2 ft. 9 in. [No. 176.]

Known as the "Gipsy Madonna," and ascribed to Titian. Collection of the Archduke Leopold William. (See p. 97.)

PORTRAIT OF A MAN. Canvas, 3 ft. 5 in. x 2 ft. 9 in. [No. 167.]

Commonly, though erroneously, called "The Physician Parma," and ascribed to Titian.

Collection of the Archduke Leopold William. (See p. 87.)

DAVID WITH THE HEAD OF GOLIATH. Wood, 2 ft. 2 in. x 2 ft. 6 in. [No. 21.]

Copy after a lost original, which is thus described by Vasari: "A David (which, according to common report, is a portrait of the master himself) with long locks, reaching to the shoulders, as was the custom of that time, and the colouring is so fresh and animating that the face appears to be rather real than painted; the breast is covered with armour, as is the arm with which he holds the head of Goliath."

This picture was at that day in the house of the Patriarch of Aquileia; the copy can be traced back to the Collection of the Archduke Leopold William at Brussels. (See p. 48.)

Herr Wickhoff, however, seems to think that, were the repaints removed, the Vienna picture might prove to be Giorgione's original painting. See Berenson's Study and Criticism of Italian Art, vol. i. p. 74, note.



BRITISH ISLES



LONDON, NATIONAL GALLERY.

ADORATION OF THE MAGI, or THE EPIPHANY. Panel. 12 in. x 2 ft. 8 in. [No. 1160.]

From the Leigh Court sale, 1884. (See p. 53.)

UNKNOWN SUBJECT, possibly THE GOLDEN AGE. Panel. 1 ft. 11 in. x 1 ft. 7 in. [No. 1173.]

Now catalogued as "School of Barbarelli." (See p. 91.) _Purchased in 1885 at the sale of the Bohn Collection as a Giorgione.

Formerly in the Aldobrandini Palace, Rome, where it was bought by Mr. Day for the Marquis of Bristol, but afterwards sold at Christie's to Mr. White, and by him for L73.10s. to Bohn._

PORTRAIT OF A MAN, possibly PROSPERO COLONNA. Transposed in 1857 from wood to canvas, 2 ft. 8 in. x 2 ft. [No. 636.]

Catalogued as "Portrait of a Poet," by Palma Vecchio.

Formerly in possession of Mr. Tomline, and purchased in 1860 from M. Edmond Beaucousin at Paris.

It was then called the portrait of Ariosto by Titian. (See p. 81.)

A KNIGHT IN ARMOUR, probably S. LIBERALE. Wood, 1 ft. 3 in. x 10 in. [No. 269.]

Formerly in the Collection of Benjamin West, P.R.A., and bequeathed to the National Gallery by Mr. Samuel Rogers in 1855. (See p. 20.)

VENUS AND ADONIS. Canvas, 2 ft. 6 in. x 4 ft. 4 in. [No. 1123.]

Catalogued as "Venetian School," and more recently as "School of Giorgione."

Purchased in 1882 as a Giorgione at the Hamilton Palace sale. (See p. 94.)

GLASGOW GALLERY.

THE ADULTERESS BEFORE CHRIST. Canvas, 4 ft. 6 in. x 5 ft. 11 in. [No. 142.]

Ex M'Lellan Collection. (See p. 102.)

TWO MUSICIANS. Panel. 1 ft. 9 in. x 1 ft. 4 in. [No. 143.]

Recently attributed to Campagnola. Said to be Titian and Giorgione, playing violin and violoncello. The former attribution to Giorgione is probably correct.

Graham-Gilbert Collection.

New Gallery, Venetian Exhibition, 1895. [No. 99.]

HAMPTON COURT.

SHEPHERD BOY. Canvas, 1 ft. 11 in. x 1 ft. 8 in. [No. 101.]

From Charles I. Collection, where it was called a Giorgione. (See p. 49 for a suggestion as to its possible authorship.)

BUCKINGHAM PALACE.

THREE FIGURES. Half-length; two men, and a woman fainting. Canvas, 2 ft. 5 in. x 2 ft. 1 in.

Ascribed to Titian, but probably derived from a Giorgione original. Other versions are said (C. and C. ii. 149) to have been at the Hague and in the Buonarroti Collection at Florence. The London picture is so damaged and repainted, although still of splendid colouring, as to preclude all certainty of judgment.

Formerly in Charles I. Collection.

MR. WENTWORTH BEAUMONT'S COLLECTION.

ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS, or NATIVITY. Wood, 3 ft. 6 in. x 2 ft. (about).

From the Gallery of Cardinal Fesch, and presumably the same as the picture in the Collection of James II. I have sought to identify this piece with the picture "da una Nocte," painted by Giorgione for Vittorio Beccare (See p. 20, and Appendix quoting the original document.)

MR. R.H. BENSON'S COLLECTION.

HOLY FAMILY. Wood, 14 in. x 17 in.

New Gallery, 1895. [No. 148.] (See p. 96.)

MADONNA AND CHILD. Wood, 1 ft. 6 in. x 1 ft. 10 in.

New Gallery, 1895. [No. 1, under Titian's name.] (See p. 101.)

From the Burghley House Collection.

PORTRAIT OF A MAN. Canvas, 38 in. x 32 in.

Copy of a lost original. Three-quarter length; life-size; standing towards right; head facing; hands resting on a column, glove in left; black dress, cut square at throat.

New Gallery, 1895. [No. 52, as "Unknown."] (See p. 74.)

COBHAM HALL, THE EARL OF DARNLEY'S COLLECTION.

PORTRAIT OF A MAN. Canvas, 2 ft. 1 in. x 2 ft. 9 in.

Erroneously called Ariosto, and ascribed to Titian.

I have sought to identify this with the "Portrait of a Gentleman" of the Barberigo family, said by Vasari to have been painted by Titian at the age of eighteen. (See p. 69.)

HERON COURT, THE EARL OF MALMESBURY.

THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. Canvas, 22 in. x 28 in.

Copy of an unidentified original, of which other versions are to be found at Dresden, Venice (Pal. Albuzio), and Christiania. This one is probably a Bolognese repetition of the seventeenth century.

Ridolfi mentions this subject in his list of Giorgione's works.

New Gallery, 1895. [No. 29.]

HERTFORD HOUSE, WALLACE COLLECTION.

VENUS DISARMING CUPID. 3 ft. 7 in. x 3 ft. [No. 19.]

The picture was engraved as a Giorgione when in the Orleans Gallery. (See p. 93.)

KENT HOUSE, THE LATE LOUISA LADY ASHBURTON.

TWO FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE. Panel. 18 in. x 17 in.

The damaged state precludes any certainty of judgment. The composition is that of the Adrastus and Hypsipyle picture; the colouring recalls the National Gallery "Golden Age(?)." If an original, it is quite an early work. New Gallery, 1895. [No. 147.]

TWO FIGURES (half-lengths), A WOMAN AND A MAN.

Copy after a missing original, and in the style of the figures at Oldenburg. (See Venturi, La Gall. Crespi.) This or the original was engraved as a Giorgione in 1773 by Dom. Cunego ex tabula Romae in aedibus Burghesianis asservata.

KINGSTON LACY, COLLECTION OF MR. RALPH BANKES.

THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON. Canvas, 6 ft. 10 in. x 10 ft. 5 in.

Mentioned by Dr. Waagen, Suppl. Ridolfi (1646) mentions: "In casa Grimani da Santo Ermagora la Sentenza di Salomone, di bella macchia, colla figura del ministro non finita." Afterwards in the Marescalchi Gallery at Bologna, where (1820) it was seen by Lord Byron, who especially praised it (vide Life and Letters, ed. by Moore, p. 705), and at whose suggestion it was purchased by his friend Mr. Bankes. (See p. 25.)

Exhibited Royal Academy, 1869.

A PAINTED CEILING.

With four putti climbing over a circular balcony, seen in steep perspective, and covered with beautiful vine leaves and flowers. This is said to have been painted by Giorgione in the last year of his life (1510) for the Palace of Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia. Admirably preserved, and most likely a genuine work.

TEMPLE NEWSAM, COLLECTION OF THE HON. MRS MEYNELL-INGRAM.

PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

Traditionally ascribed to Titian. Just under life-size; he holds a black hat. Blue-black silk dress with sleeve of pinky red and golden brown gloves. Dark auburn hair. Dark grey marble wall behind. In excellent preservation. (See p. 86.)

COLLECTION OF SIR CHARLES TURNER.

THE ADULTERESS BEFORE CHRIST.

A free Venetian repetition, perhaps based on an alternative design for the Glasgow picture. (See p. 104.)

FRANCE.

LOUVRE.

FETE CHAMPETRE, or PASTORAL SYMPHONY. Canvas, 3 ft. 8 in. x 4 ft. 9 in.

Said to have been in Charles I. Collection, and sold to Louis XIV. by Jabuch. (See p. 39.)

HOLY FAMILY AND SAINTS CATHERINE AND SEBASTIAN, WITH DONOR. Wood, 3 ft. 4 in. x 4 ft. 6 in.

Perhaps left incomplete by Giorgione at his death, and finished by Sebastiano del Piombo. (See p. 105.)

From Charles I. Collection.

GERMANY.

BERLIN GALLERY.

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

Acquired from Dr. Richten (See p. 30.)

BERLIN, COLLECTION OF HERR VON KAUFFMANN.

STA. GIUSTINA.

A small seated figure with the unicorn. Recently acquired at Cologne, and known to the writer only by photograph and description, but tentatively accepted as genuine.

DRESDEN GALLERY.

VENUS. Canvas, 3 ft. 7 in. x 5 ft. 10 in. [No. 185.]

Formerly catalogued as a copy by Sassoferrato after Titian. Restored by Morelli to Giorgione, and universally accepted as such. Mentioned by the Anonimo and Ridolfi, and said to have been completed by Titian. (See p. 35.)

THE HOROSCOPE. Canvas, 4 ft. 5 in. x 6 ft. 2 in.

Copy after a lost original. C. and C. suggest Girolamo Pennacchi as possible author. It bears the Este arms.

From the Manfrini and Barker Collections.

(See Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1884, tom. xxx. p. 223.)

JUDGMENT OF PARIS. Canvas, 1 ft. 9 in. x 2 ft. 3 in.

One of several copies of a lost original. [See under British Isles—Heron Court.]

ITALY

BERGAMO, GALLERY.

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. Wood, 1 ft. 3 in, x 1 ft. 9 in. [No. 179, Lochis section.]

(See p. 89.)

MADONNA AND CHILD. Wood, 1 ft. 3 in. x 1 ft. 6 in. [No. 232, Lochis section, as "Titian."]

The composition is very similar to Mr. Benson's "Madonna and Child" (q.v.). (See p. 101.)

THE ADULTERESS BEFORE CHRIST. 4 ft. 11 in. x 7 ft. 3 in. [No. 26, Carrara section.]

Later copy, with slight variations, of the Glasgow picture, Ascribed to Cariani, and in a dirty state. (See p. 104.)

CASTELFRANCO, DUOMO.

MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED, SS. LIBERALE AND FRANCIS BELOW. Wood, 7 ft. 6 in. x 4 ft. 10 in.

(See p. 7.)

FLORENCE, PITTI GALLERY.

THE CONCERT. Canvas, 3 ft. 10 in. x 7 ft. 4 in. [No. 185.]

Described by Ridolfi and Boschini.

An old copy is at Hyde Park House, another in the Palazzo Doria, Rome. (See p. 49.)

THE THREE AGES. Wood, 3 ft. 8 in. x 5 ft. 4 in. [No. 157.]

By C. and C. ascribed to Lotto, by Morelli to Giorgione.

(See p. 42.)

NYMPH AND SATYR. Canvas. [No. 147.]

(See p. 44.)

FLORENCE, UFFIZI GALLERY.

TRIAL OF MOSES, or ORDEAL BY FIRE. Canvas. Figures one-eighth life-size. [No. 621.]

From Poggio Imperiale.(See p. 15.)

JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON. Companion piece to last. Wood. [No. 630.]

(See p. 15.)

KNIGHT OF MALTA. Canvas. Bust, life-size. [No. 622.]

The letters XXXV probably refer to the man's age. Mr. Dickes (Magazine of Art, April 1893) thinks he is Stefano Colonna, who died 1548. (See p. 19.)

MILAN, CRESPI COLLECTION.

PORTRAIT OF CATERINA CORNARO. Canvas, 3 ft. 11 in. x 3 ft. 2 in.

From the Alessandro Martinengo Gallery, Brescia (1640), thence to Collection Francesco Riccardi, Bergamo, where C. and C. saw it in 1877. They state it was engraved in the line series of Sala. It has been known traditionally both as Caterina Cornaro and "La Schiavona." (See p. 74.)

In the signature T.V. it is clear that the V represents the last letter but one in TITIANVS. The first three letters can just be made out. There are many pentimenti on the marble parapet, which seems to have been painted over the dress.

PADUA, GALLERY.

Two cassone panels with mythological scenes. Wood, about 4 ft. x 1 ft. each. [Nos. 416, 417.]

(See p. 56.)

Two very small panels with mythological scenes, one representing LEDA AND THE SWAN. Wood, about 5 in. x 3 in. each. [Nos. 42, 43.]

(See p. 90.)

ROME, BORGHESE GALLERY.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY. Canvas, 3 ft. 2 in. x 2 ft. 6 in.

(See p. 33.)

NATIONAL GALLERY, PAL. CORSINI.

S. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.

Recently acquired.

(Tentatively accepted from the photograph. See p. 91.)

ROVIGO, GALLERY.

MADONNA AND CHILD. [NO. 2.]

Repetition by Titian of Giorgione's original at Vienna

(See p. 98.)

A SMALL SEATED FIGURE. DANAE? [No. 156.]

Copy of a missing original.

VENICE, ACADEMY.

STORM AT SEA CALMED BY S. MARK. Wood, 11 ft. 8 in. x 13 ft. 6 in. [No. 516.]

From the Scuola di S. Marco, where it was companion piece to Paris Bordone's "Fisherman and Doge." Ascribed by Vasari to Palma Vecchio, by Zanetti to Giorgione.

Too damaged to admit of definite judgment. (See p. 55.)

THREE FIGURES. Half-lengths; a woman fainting, supported by a man; another behind.

Modern copy by Fabris of apparently a missing original. Can this be the picture mentioned by C. and C. as in the possession of the King of Holland? (C. and C. ii. 149, note.) Cf. also, Notes to Sansoni's Vasari, iv. p. 104. Another version is at Buckingham Palace (q.v.), but it differs in detail from this copy.

SEMINARIO.

APOLLO AND DAPHNE. Cassone panel. Wood. Small figures, much defaced. (See p. 34.)

CHURCH OF SAN ROCCO. CHRIST BEARING THE CROSS. Panel. Busts large as life. About 3 ft. x 2 ft.

Christ clad in pale grey, head turned three-quarters looking out of the picture, auburn hair and beard, bears cross. He is dragged forward by an elderly man nude to waist. Another man in profile to left. An old man with white beard just visible behind Christ. (See p. 54.)

PAL. ALBUZIO. JUDGMENT OF PARIS.

Another version of this subject, of which copies exist at Christiania, Lord Malmesbury's, and Dresden.

PAL. GIOVANELLI. ADRASTUS AND HYPSIPYLE. Canvas, 2 ft. 9 in. x 2 ft. 5 in.

Described by the Anonimo in the house of Gabriel Vendramin (1530). (See p. 11.)

Statius (lib. iv. 730 ff.) describes how King Adrastus, wandering through the woods in search of a spring to quench the thirst of his troops, encounters by chance Queen Hypsipyle, who had been driven out of Lemnos by the wicked women, who had resolved to slay their husbands, and she had taken refuge in the service of the King of Nemea, in capacity of nurse.

Ex Manfrini Palace.

PAL. QUERINI-STAMPALIA. PORTRAIT OF A MAN. Unfinished. Wood, 2 ft. 6 in. square. (See p. 85.)

NORWAY.

CHRISTIANIA.

JUDGMENT OF PARIS.

Another version of this subject, of which copies exist at Lord Malmesbury's, Dresden, and Venice.

RUSSIA.

ST. PETERSBURG, HERMITAGE GALLERY.

JUDITH. 4 ft. 9 in. x 2 ft. 2 in. [No. 112.]

Once ascribed to Raphael, and engraved as such (in 1620), by H.H. Quitter, and afterwards by several other artists. Dr. Waagen pronounced it to be Moretto's work, and accordingly the name was changed; as such Braun has photographed it. It is now officially recognised rightly as a Giorgione (vide Catalogue of 1891).

THE END