Home	Titian: The Life of Titian, Painter [1477-1576]
	1477.Tiziano di Gregorio di Conte de' Vecelh, commonly called Titian by English-speaking people, was born in 1477, in a house on the Piazzetta dell' Arsenale at Pieve di Cadore in the Alps of Friuli, seventy miles from Venice. Titian, like Michelangelo, came of a very ancient race of the petty nobility; his grandfather, Conte de' Vecelli, was the most trusted member of the council of Cadore; his father, Gregorio di Conte, was distinguished both as magistrate and soldier; his mother was named Lucia, his brother and sisters, Francesco, Caterina, and Orsa. 1507/8. The Emperor Maximilian makes war on Venice. 1508. Titian collaborates with Giorgione in the painting of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. 1510. Death of Giorgione. 1511, December 2nd. The Fraternity of St. Anthony in Padua pays Titian four ducats as last instalment of his fee for the three frescoes in the Scuola del Santo. 1513, March 31st. Titian petitions the Council of Ten to grant him the order for painting a battle picture in the Sala del Grande Consiglio, and obtains the commission together with the reversionary right to a broker's licence at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. 1516. Titian finally obtains the broker's licence which he has been striving for against repeated opposition since 1513. 1516. Titian comes into contact with Alfonso d'Este of Ferrara. 1516-18. Assumption for Santa Maria dei Frari, unveiled on March 20th, 1518. 1520. Altar-piece for the church of San Francesco in Ancona. 1520-22. Altar-piece for Santi Nazaro e Celso in Brescia, of which the St. Sebastian panel was finished in 1520. 1523. Titian comes into contact with the Margrave Federigo d'Este of Mantua. 1523-38. Doge Andrea Gritti. 1519-26. Madonna of the Pesaro family. 1525. Titian marries. 1527. Sack of Rome. 1528-30. Martyrdom of St. Peter Martyr in Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. 1530. February 24th. Coronation of Emperor Charles V at Bologna. 1530. August 5th. Death of Titian's wife Cecilia. 1531. September. Titian moves to the house in Birri Grande, which he inhabited until his death. 1531. October. Unveiling of the votive picture of Doge Andrea Gritti in the Ducal Palace. 1532. Beginning of Titian's relationship with Francesco Maria delia Rovere, Duke of Urbino. 1533, May 20th. Titian appointed court painter to Charles V and promoted to Count Palatine. 1534-49. Papacy of Paul III. 1537, April. Titian sends Federigo Gonzaga the first picture of the series of twelve Caesars. [Born 1477; died 1576.] Titian was born in the Italian Tyrol, bordering the Austrian Alps on the one hand, and on the other leading by mountain passes in a half-day's ride to the fertile plains of the Veneto. His native village of Pieve da Cadore is surrounded by mountain peaks and by forests, which were an inexhaustible source for the masts and piles of Venice. The townsmen were a proud race who had resisted encroachment, and the place became incorporated with Venice on equal terms in 1421. Titian's family was an important one, holding office for two generations with dignity and character. An uncle lived in Venice, and it was natural that Titian and an older brother, both showing an aptitude for drawing, should be sent to Venice in their uncle's care to study a trade which gave employment to thousands of craftsmen. He was first placed with Gentile Bellini, but later we find him working with Giovanni, and attaching himself with peculiar intimacy to the young Giorgione. There were other young men of power, if not in the workshop, then easily accessiblePalma Vecchio and Sebastiano del Piombo. We can imagine how Venice must have affected the mountain lad, but we have almost no records of the time. He was engaged to work with Giorgione ( 1507- 1508) on some exterior decoration--on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi--when about thirty years old; there are altarpieces that from internal evidence are surely early; and in 1511 he was working on frescoes in Padua; this is the first landmark in his career. During his absence Venice was decimated with plague, and he returned to a changed situation. Giorgione had died, Sebastiano del Piombo had gone to Rome, and he found himself become the most important of the young artists. The battle was on between the innovations that he and Giorgione represented and the long-established prestige of Bellini's manner, and not until Giovanni's death in 1516 did Titian receive State employment in the Doge's palace. But from this time on his course was clear. He easily became the first painter in Venice, the leader of the Venetian school. His fame was carried abroad. He worked for the great ducal houses of Ferrara, Mantua, Urbino, and continued his intercourse for two generations. He met the Emperor Charles V, and more than once visited his German court. He journeyed ( 1545) in practically a royal progress to Rome, and was quartered in the Vatican. At home he lived in a style which his prominence and Venetian luxury demanded, and when he died, a very old man, he was still at work, and still the great painter of Venice. No one had arisen to take his place. Titian illustrated the whole range of Venetian painting, taking it up at the point to which Bellini had brought it and carrying it to the verge of the decadence. His art cannot be seen from a single aspect. But at the end the impression is of universality. He is not at his best in purely ideal motives, nor often the exponent of an inner passion; his instinct tends to externalise such themes. He needs something actual--a portrait, an event, or landscape--to work upon. Yet with realities as a basis he is lyric and idealistic. The completeness of his art is ill the union of the ideal and actual vision. Any analysis of Titian's works is confusing on account of their immense variety and the recurrence at intervals of similar moods and subjects. We will discuss them in two ways: first, by subject, without reference to date; second, by periods. In subject he passed over a surprising range--the simple altarpiece, the scenic painting of Venetian life, mythologies for boudoir and study, ideal heads, portraiture in all kinds, and various others. Titian's portraits especially represent his genius. A score at least are perfect, considering their scope; a few perhaps are beyond all rivalry. This is true of his men; he is less the painter of women. His portraits may be roughly grouped in three classes. First, those part lengths with simple backgrounds where the slight accessories are entirely subordinated to an intimate portrayal of the subject--a treatment which recurs throughout his life. Of these the earlier are Giorgionesque, in a certain mystery, a shadowed treatment, a use of darks, and the most famous are very remarkable, as the so-called Ariosto ( London, 1506- 1508), painted while Giorgione was still at his side, and the Man with the Glove ( Louvre, 1510- 1520), painted somewhere in the period following Giorgione's death. But even in these there is a realism, a dwelling upon padded sleeve and wrinkled glove, that belongs to Titian's objective nature. The Man with the Glove is entirely human, yet there is so inevitable a shaping of form to idea that they seem one. The effect is inexplicable, yet felt by all trained eyes. This kind of portraiture finds a marvellous expression in the so-called Young Englishman of the Pitti (of his middle period, 1540- 1545). In technique it is broad and sensitive. Its grey tone is penetrated by the subtlest variety of light and colour; and in characterisation it is a poem of sympathetic interpretation. It is significant that it may be, in fact, a young Italian! Not the racial species, but the personal character, is the theme. The second type of portrait still finds him concerned with personal character, but with character emphasized by accessories of dress and surroundings--velvet and jewels, the glint of armour, the fondled dog or bird, the book in hand, anything that shows reactions on the person, as is seen in the portrait of Alfonso d'Este, whose velvet and wrought chain and sword hilt emphasize the haughty sternness of the Duke's face; or in the various portraits of Paul III in Papal dress, or in the Pietro Aretino ( 1545), whose robes and heavy chain are harmonious with his somewhat vulgar personal aggressiveness. Supreme of this kind are the companion portraits of Francesco della Rovere, the unconquerable and unfortunate Duke of Urbino, and his Duchess Leonora Gonzaga. The ease of execution, the concentration of interest on the heads, the subordination of background and details, the play of light and colour on texture, place them beyond criticism. Allied with these are those portraits of women, splendid as painting, which in general he reduces to studies of outward feminine beauty-flesh as flesh, alluring like their jewels and raiment. The most wonderful portraits of all are those where the personal is merged in a larger sense; landscape, accessories, accompanying persons contribute to a pictorial idea which embraces but far exceeds the particular subject. Among such is that extraordinary group of the Farnese Pope, Paul III and His Two Grandsons ( 1545), one of the most dramatic portraits in the world, which gives intimate analysis of individual character and of an intense family situation--the aged Pope, crafty, suspicious, venomous, stubbornly tenacious of power; and the grandsons, wholly cold-hearted, already conspirators against him, fearing and cringing. No analysis, even by Leonardo, exceeds this in penetration. The Charles V on Horseback ( Madrid) is easily the greatest European equestrian portrait in simplicity, dignity, and richness of design, as in the rhythm between the massive foreground and the open distance. The rider and horse caparisoned in armour, are relieved against a ground that stretches back to the light-streaked sky and massive foliage. Note the breadth of execution, the beauty of sky and atmosphere. The effect is heroic, epic. It is leadership embodied. The companion portrait is also very great, Charles V Seated in a Loggia ( Munich), observant, reticent, the student of affairs. Whatever the intention of the painter, it is the portrait of statesmanship as well as of a statesman. The Little Daughter of Roberto Strozzi ( Berlin, 1542) should be mentioned, an idyll of childhood tended and loved in the shadow of its loggia among the woods and fields of a country estate. In the so-called fancy portraits we are given concrete examples of pure beauty of colour and form; as, for example, the Flora of the Uffizi ( 1515- 1516), an insipid type so sensitively rendered that it takes its place as a masterpiece, with its warm flesh, the gold in the hair, the contrasting textures in fabric, the easy rendering with broad strokes of a detailed effect; and the group represented by the Lady at Her Toilet ( Louvre, 1510- 1515), the Vanitas of Munich, and others, all physically and objectively beautiful. Another group of subjects is formed by those scenes of physical abandon, all movement and colour and suggestive flesh against cool out-of-doors, sometimes enervating, even sensual, yet wonderful for colour and expression of the actual. Titian had always been fond of the nude. He begins early with the naked babies in the Three Ages of Life and continues with the Sacred Love and with the whole Venus series--Venus bathing, Venus reclining, a riot of little loves in the worship of Venus, and similar pictures under other names--all designed, in part at least, to exhibit the thousand beauties in the female form. The Worship of Venus ( Madrid) suggests the infinite variety of rose petals in combination with broader aspects of nature. These subjects were doubtless suggested by the taste of the ducal courts, but they were sympathetic to one side of Titian himself. There was coarseness, as in the Venus of Urbino (Uffizi), which closely follows the lines of Giorgione Venus at Dresden, but which brings that creation of rare beauty down to a very fleshly conception, and in the frank grossness of the Venus and Cupid (Uffizi), painted some years later. Yet with all such detractions, these subjects with their setting often exhibit designs of extraordinary beauty. We finally turn to the religious pictures. Some half his paintings bear religious titles, but religious pictures as such are never Titian's forte; only three or four may be classed among his really important works. There are various types: monumental altarpieces, Madonna pictures (Holy Conversaziones), which are really naturalistic idylls, dramatic compositions somewhat agitated and grandiose, and at intervals throughout his life descriptive scenes--a Baptism, an Annunciation, and religious pictures of a somewhat overwrought sentiment--the Magdalen ( S. Petersburg), the Crucifixion at Ancona. Of all these pictures the Holy Conversaziones alone compare in importance with his secular themes. In them he is at his finest. They grow with his growth, and show wonderful variety. and the Palmesque Madonna with S. Bridget, Madrid, to the Madonna with S. Catherine, London, etc. We can roughly designate five periods in Titian's art: I. His EARLY GROWTH ( 1476-1510) under the Bellini influence and while closely associated with Giorgione. II. His EARLY MATURITY ( 1510-1530), after his return from Padua, a period of magnificent power culminating in his work for the Duke of Ferrara, but a period in which he also shows an occasional grandiose quality. III. The great CENTRAL PERIOD ( 1530-1545) of his full maturity, when he was constantly employed by the Courts of Urbino and Mantua and met the Emperor--this is the period of consummate technique, most striking portraits, and the utmost range of subject and style, from the charming Madonna with S. Catherine ( London) through the Battle of Cadore to the realistic Presentation of the Virgin ( Venice Academy). It is during this period that the rich and simple colours and contrasts of the early years give way to harmonies in grey. IV. When he is seventy-four years old we are brought to his LATE PERIOD ( 15451560), the period of his universal fame, including the Roman sojourn and the visits to Germany, when his work is more powerful than ever, if sometimes less purely beautiful. V. Finally we come to his EXTREME OLD AGE ( 1560-1575), when he is still active, though less secure and inevitable. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their edition of 1881 of the Life and Times of Titian, have shown such erudition and tireless patience that the notes in the following life owe more to these authors (and to M. Lafenestre in his admirable book, Le Titien) than to all other writers on the subject put together. Even in the Bibliography Crowe and Cavalcaselle have been used as commentators upon the early works upon Titian. Of these early sources there are the contemporary Dialoghi of Dolce, Pino, and Biondo which possess anecdotic interest, and the letters of Aretino. Borghini printed his Riposo in 1584, and the Anonimo ( 1622) was dedicated to the Countess of Arundel by Tizianello, a collateral descendant of Titian. Ridolfi, in the seventeenth century, was the first to give a finished life of Titian, a life which Crowe and Cavalcaselle consider made but a "superficial" application of abundant sources of information. Dr. Taddeo Jacobi, like Tizianello, a descendant of the Vecelli, collected many documents referring to Cadore, and gave them to Stefano Ticozzi, whose book, published in 1817, is, through ignorance of art shallow and redundant in style, so much so, indeed, that it called forth a satire by Andrea Maier, the Imitazione Pittorica, Venice, 1818. The Abate Cadorin followed, treating of Venice, as Jacobi had wished to treat of Cadore, and Francesco Beltrami, Tiziano Veccellio e il suo monumento, 1853, condensed the former author's facts. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle cite especially the debt owed to MM. Gachard and Pinchard for their publication of the inventories of Charles V. and Mary of Hungary, and their own personal debt as authors to Don Francisco Diaz, for use of the Simancas letters of Titian, of Charles V., and of his ministers. They cite also the patient investigations of Pungileoni and Morelli, their study of the Anonimi of Zen and Tizianello and of Sanuto's diaries. They mention Elze, Heyd, and Thomas upon the Fondaco of the Tedeschi, but consider that the most important contributions to Venetian art-literature in late years have been Lorenzi's Monumenti ( 1877- 1881), especially as to the completing of the Ducal Palace, Ronchini's relations of Titian with the Farnesi, Campori's Estensi papers, and Braghirolli's Mantuan papers. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have also used Dr. Jacobi's and Giuseppe Ciani's Cadorine historical material. In addition to the sixteenth and seventeenth century writers mentioned above, we have, among later works, the following: S. Ticozzi, Vite dei pittori Vecelli di Cadore, Milan. 1817. Sir Abraham Hume , Notices of the Life and Works of Titian, London, 1829 (a condensation of Ridolfi, with lists of pictures, etc., added). J. Northcote, The Life of Titian, London, 1830 (an extraordinarily phrased and confused book, containing, however, many letters. Crowe and Cavalcaselle say the author I tried to supersede Hume by pirating Ticozzi"). J. Cadorin, Dell' Amore ai Veneziani di Tiziano Vecellio, Venice, 1833. Anna Jameson, The House of Titian (in her Memoirs and Essays), London, 1840. A. Houssaye, Les Rois de La République, Titien. in L'Artiste, 1865, Vol. II., p. 1845, Paris, 1865. W. Bergmann , Tizian; Bilder aus seinem Leben und seiner Zeit, Hanover, 1865. A. Houssaye, Les Coloristes, Titien in L'Artiste, 1868, Vol. III., p. 307, Paris, 1868. J. B. Lorenzi, Monumenti per servire alla storia del Palazzo Ducale di Venzia, Venice, 1868. J. Gilbert, Cadore, or Titian's Country, London, 1869 (a delightful volume in which the author joins background to foreground--Titian's country to Titian's art-work. The book contains a great number of drawings of the mountains and valleys about Cadore). Max Jordan , Tizian, in the Dohme Series of Kunst und Künstler des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit. G. Campori, Tiziano e gli Estensi, in the Nuova Antologia, November, 1874 (important papers showing, through original correspondence, the relations of Titian with the Court of Ferrara). P. E. Selvatico, Di alcuni abbozzi di Tiziano, Padua, 1875. J. Gilbert, "Titian", from Fraser's Magazine, May, 1877. A. Lang, "Titian", from the Fortnightly Review, February, 1877. J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, The Life and Times of Titian, London, 1877 and 1881. This if; probably the most important existing work upon the artist; the sources especially drawn upon by the authors have been mentioned at the beginning of this Bibliography. For their book itself it may be said that its erudition is amazing, the patience of the authors tireless, their description of the works of art--they having personally examined nearly a thousand pictures executed by, or attributed to, Titian--is invaluable as a record of the condition of the canvases and panels, their color, composition, etc. The arrangement of their work, though chronological, is confusing, and might be bettered by editing. When they speak as art-critics the authors are sometimes excellent, but when they try to express themselves technically, especially as to handling and color, their sentences are sometimes meaningless. In spite of this, their contribution, through their Histories of Painting in Italy, their Raphael and their Titian, can hardly be overestimated, and the names of the late Sir Joseph Archer Crowe (who died in September of this year, 1896), and that of his colleague, G. B. Cavalcaselle, occupy an important place in the history of the literature of art. A. de Montaiglon , La Mise au Tombeau du Titien, Oazette des Beaux-Arts, XV., Second Series, p. 69, Paris, 1877. M. Thausing, Tizian und die Herzogin Eleonora von Urbino, Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, XIII., pp. 257, 305, Leipsic, 1878. J. B. Atkinson, Tizian, sein Leben und seine zeit in Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, XIII., pp. 181, 217, Leipsic, 1878. R. F. Heath, Titian, London, 1879 (in the series of "The Great Artists"). Braghirolli, Tiziano alla corte dei Gonzaghi di Vantova, Mantua, 1881 (an important contribution to our knowledge of Titian's correspondence). G. Lafenestre, La Vie et l' (Euvre de Titien, Paris, 1888. (This fine monograph is, together with the volumes of Crowe and Cavaleaselle, the most complete contribution to the subject of Titian's life and works. M. Lafenestre is one of the most discriminating and enlightening of living art-critics, and through its criticism his work becomes as important as that of Crowe and Cavaleaselle is by its erudition. The book, a thick folio, is embellished by fine autotype reproductions of Titian's drawings, and is disfigured by very poor wood-cuts). A. Luzio , Pietro Aretino nei primi suoi anni a Venezia a la corte dei Gonzaga, Turin, 1888. P. de Madrazo, Catálogo de los cuadros del Museo del Prado de Madrid, Madrid, 1889. ( Crowe and Cavalcaselle think this to be still the most important source of information regarding Titian to be found in Spain, excepting of course the Simancas letters.) C. Barfold, Titian Vecelio, Hans Samtid, Live og Konst, Copenhagen, 1889; Tre Lettere di Tiziano al Cardinale Ercole Gonzaga, in L'Archivio Storico dell' Arte, III., p. 207, 1890. Bernardo Morsolin, "Opere di Tiziano Vecellio ignorate o perdute", article in Arte e Storia, 1890, n. 19. G. B. Cavalcaselle, "Spigolature Tizianesche", article in L'Archivio Storico dell' Arte, IV., p. 1, 1891. Zimmermann , Die Landschaft in der Venezianischen Malerei bis zum Tode Tizians, Leipsic, 1893. Bernhard Berenson, The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, New York, 1894 (including a catalogue of the works of Titian). Mr. Ruskin's books contain charming passages upon Titian's landscape, as every reader of the great author knows. Justi, Jahrbuch der Königlichen Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 1894. P. Gauthiez, L'Italie du XVI siècle, L'Arétin, Paris, 1896. The minor men of the High Renaissance fall naturally into several more or less closely related groups: 1. Those born but a few years later than Giorgione and Titian, practically contemporaries, sometimes directly influenced at first by the older generation, as Lotto, Cariani, and Pordenone; 2. Those a little younger, apparently starting out under the influence of Palma, or Giorgione, or Titian, as Bordone and Bonifazio; 3. and those coming still later, the pupils of Giorgione's or Titian's pupils, as Bassano; these also shared, of course, the general influence of Giorgione and Titian: how could it be otherwise when Titian outlived almost all of them? Between them are all shades of connection and influence, and there are also the divisions made between those in the direct stream, and those held back by provincial attachments, or diverted by various alien influences; the subdivisions are infinite.