Lives of the Artists

by Giorgio Vasari

  At that time Titian made friends with the inspired Lodovico Ariosto, who acknowledged him as a most outstanding painter and celebrated him in his Orlando Furioso:

  … and Titian who honours

  Cador, as they do Venice and Urbino.1

  After he had returned to Venice, for the father-in-law of Giovanni da Castel Bolognese Titian did a painting in oils on canvas of a naked shepherd and a country girl who is offering some pipes for him to play, with an extremely beautiful landscape. This picture, today, is to be found in Faenza, in Giovanni’s house. Next, for the church of the Frari, called the Ca’grande, Titian painted an altarpiece for the high altar showing Our Lady ascending into heaven and below her the twelve apostles who are watching as she ascends; but there is little to be seen of this work, because it was painted on cloth and has not, perhaps, been looked after very well. In the same church, for the chapel of the Pesari family, he painted a picture of the Madonna, with her Son in her arms, and St Peter and St George; and round about are the patrons of the work, kneeling down, all portrayed from life: they include the bishop of Paphos and his brother, just returned from the victory which the bishop had won against the Turks. For the little church of San Niccolò in the same convent Titian painted an altarpiece on which he depicted St Nicholas, St Francis, St Catherine, and also a nude St Sebastian portrayed from life whose fine limbs and trunk are conveyed without artifice, all being presented just as Titian saw it in nature, so that the body of St Sebastian seems as if printed from a living figure, it is so fleshlike and natural. It is held therefore to be extremely beautiful, as is the very lovely figure of Our Lady with the infant Christ in her arms, at whom all the saints are looking. The subject of this picture was drawn on wood by Titian himself and then engraved and printed by others.

  For the church of Rocco, after he had done the works described above, Titian painted a picture of Christ carrying the cross on his shoulder and being dragged along at the end of a rope by one of the Jews; this image (which many people have attributed to Giorgione) is today held in the greatest veneration in Venice, where it has received in alms more crowns than Titian and Giorgione ever earned in all their lives.

  Titian was then asked to Rome by Bembo (who at that time was secretary to Pope Leo X and whom he had already portrayed) so that he might see Rome itself, and visit Raphael of Urbino and other artists. But he kept putting things off from one day to the other until Raphael died in 1520, and then Leo, and in the end Titian did not go.

  For the church of Santa Maria Maggiore he did a painting of St John the Baptist in the desert among some rocks, an angel that seems alive, and a little piece of distant landscape with some trees on the bank of a river, all extremely graceful. He painted portraits from life of Prince Grimani and Loredan, which were held to be admirable; and not long afterwards he portrayed King Francis when he was leaving Italy to return to France. Titian also painted the portrait of Andrea Gritti, the year he was elected doge, producing a work of rare quality in which he depicted Our Lady, St Mark, and St Andrew with the countenance of the doge. This marvellous picture is in the Sala del Collegio. And since, as I said, he was under an obligation to do so, he has also portrayed, in addition to those I mentioned, the following who have been doges in their time: Pietro Lando, Francesco Donato, Marcantonio Trevisan, and Veniero. However, he has recently been excused this duty by the two doges and brothers, Priuli, on account of his great age.

  Before the sack of Rome, Pietro Aretino, one of our most famous contemporary poets, had gone to live in Venice where he became very friendly with Sansovino and Titian. This brought Titian great honour and advantages, for the reason that Aretino made him known wherever his pen reached, and especially to important rulers (as will be described in the proper place).1 Meanwhile, to return to Titian’s works, he made the altarpiece for the altar of St Peter Martyr in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, depicting the holy martyr, in a figure larger than life, prostrate on the ground in a forest of very great trees, and furiously assailed by a soldier who has wounded him so grievously in the head that, as he lies there half alive, one sees the horror of death in his face; and the expression of another friar, who has taken to his heels, similarly reflects terror and fear of death. In the air above are two nude angels, descending from heaven with a flash of lightning which lights up both the beautiful landscape and all the rest of the work, and of all the pictures painted so far by Titian this is the most finished, the most celebrated, the greatest and the best conceived and executed. When it was seen by Gritti (who was always very friendly towards Titian and Sansovino as well) he had Titian allocated a great scene in the hall of the Great Council, showing the rout of Ghiaradadda. Here Titian depicted soldiers fighting in furious combat while a terrible rain falls from heaven. This work, wholly taken from life, is held to be the best of all the scenes in the hall, and the most beautiful. In the same palace, at the foot of a stairway, he did a painting in fresco of the Madonna.

  Not long afterwards he painted a very fine Christ seated at table with Cleophas and Luke for a gentleman of the Contarini family, who rightly decided that the picture was worthy to be on public view. So, as a lover of his country and of the commonwealth, he presented it to the Signoria. It was kept for a long time in the apartments of the doge but today it is on view to the public, over the door where everyone may see it, in the Salotto d’Oro in front of the hall of the Council of Ten.

  Titian also made, about the same time, for the School of Charity a picture of the Virgin ascending the steps of the Temple, in which he depicted all kinds of heads portrayed from life. And for the School of St Faustinus he did a small picture of St Jerome in Penitence, which won great praise from other artists, but which, along with the church itself, was destroyed by fire two years ago.

  It is said that in the year 1530, when the Emperor Charles V was in Bologna, through the agency of Pietro Aretino Titian was asked by Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici to go to that city. And there he executed a very fine portrait of his Majesty in full armour, which so pleased the emperor that he had him paid a thousand crowns; however, subsequently, Titian had to give half of this to the sculptor Alfonso Lombardi, who had made a model to be reproduced in marble.

  After his return to Venice, Titian found that a number of gentlemen who had taken Pordenone into their favour (giving high praise to the works executed by him on the ceiling of the Sala de’ Pregai and elsewhere) had won for him the commission to paint a little altarpiece in the church of San Giovanni Elemosinario; this was so that he should do something in competition with Titian, who shortly before had painted for the same place a picture showing St John the Almoner in the robes of a bishop.1 However, for all the diligence with which he worked, Pordenone’s altarpiece fell far short of Titian’s work. Meanwhile, for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli at Murano, Titian painted a very fine panel picture of the Annunciation. But the man who had commissioned it was reluctant to pay the five hundred crowns demanded and so Titian sent the picture, on the advice of Pietro Aretino, to the Emperor Charles V who was so tremendously pleased with it that he made him a gift of two thousand crowns. Where this painting was to have gone a work by Pordenone was placed instead.

  No long time passed before Charles V, returning with his army from Hungary to confer with Pope Clement at Bologna, wanted Titian to paint his portrait once again. And before he left Bologna Titian also painted a portrait of Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, in Hungarian dress, and in another smaller picture the same cardinal in full armour. Both of these are now in Duke Cosimo’s wardrobe. At this time Titian also did portraits of Alfonso d’Avalos, marquis del Vasto, and of Pietro Aretino, who then persuaded him to become the friend and servant of Federigo Gonzaga. Titian went back with Gonazaga to his own state, where he painted his portrait, which is a living likeness, and then the portrait of the cardinal, his brother. After these were finished, for the adornment of one of Giulio Romano’s rooms he painted twelve figures, from the waist upwards, of the twelve Caesars, beneath each of w
hich Giulio subsequently painted a story from their lives.

  In his birthplace, Cadore, Titian has painted a panel picture showing Our Lady with St Tiziano the bishop and a portrait of himself, kneeling. In the year when Pope Paul III went to Bologna and then on to Ferrara, Titian went to court, where he painted the Pope’s portrait (a very fine work) and from it another for Cardinal Santa Fiore. These two portraits, for which the Pope paid him very generously, are now in Rome, one in the wardrobe of Cardinal Farnese and the other in the hands of the heirs of Cardinal Santa Fiore; many copies were taken from them and are now dispersed throughout Italy. About the same time Titian also did a portrait of Francesco Maria, duke of Urbino; this was a marvellous work which prompted Pietro Aretino to honour him in a sonnet beginning:

  When the great Apelles used his art

  To paint the face and form of Alexander…

  In the wardrobe of the same duke there are two very lovely female heads painted by Titian as well as a young recumbent Venus with flowers and light draperies about her (a very beautiful and well-finished picture), and, in addition, a half-length figure of St Mary Magdalen with her hair all loose, a really outstanding painting. There also are the portraits of Charles V, King Francis as a young man, Duke Guidobaldo II, Pope Sixtus IV, Pope Julius II, Paul III, the old Cardinal of Lorraine, and Suleiman, emperor of the Turks: all these are portraits from the hand of Titian, as I said, and they are all very beautiful. (There are many other works in the same wardrobe, including a head of Hannibal of Carthage engraved on an antique cornelian, and a lovely marble head by Donatello.)

  In 1541, for the friars of Santo Spirito at Venice, Titian painted the altarpiece of the high altar. He showed the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, and he depicted God-the-Father in the image of fire and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. This panel deteriorated very quickly and after a great deal of litigation Titian had to paint it again, and it is the second version which is over the altar today. For the church of San Nazzaro in Brescia he painted an altarpiece for the high altar in five scenes: in the centre is Jesus Christ returning to life, with some figures of soldiers around him; and at the sides are shown St Nazarius himself, St Sebastian, the Angel Gabriel, and the Virgin receiving the Annunciation. For a wall at the entrance of the cathedral of Verona he painted a panel picture showing the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven, with the apostles on the ground below, which is regarded as the best of the modern works in that city.

  In 1541 Titian executed the portrait of Don Diego di Mendoza, at that time ambassador of Charles V to Venice, producing a splendid full length standing figure; and with this Titian started what has since come into fashion, namely the creation of full-length portraits. In the same fashion he executed the portrait of the Cardinal of Trent, when a young man; and for Francesco Marcolin he did a portrait of Pietro Aretino, though this was not as fine as another he did of the same subject which Aretino himself sent as a gift to Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, to whom he also sent a head of Signor Giovanni de’ Medici, the Lord Duke’s father. This head was copied from a cast belonging to Aretino which was taken from Giovanni’s face when he died at Mantua. Both these portraits are in Duke Cosimo’s wardrobe, along with many other noble pictures.

  Now that same year, after Vasari had been thirteen months in Venice in order to execute a ceiling for Giovanni Cornaro and some works for the Confraternity of Hosiers, Sansovino, who was directing the construction of Santo Spirito, had had him make designs for three large oil-paintings which he was also to execute on the ceiling. But Vasari left Venice, and these pictures were then allotted to Titian who executed them very beautifully and with wonderful artistry foreshortened his figures from below upwards. In one he depicted Abraham sacrificing Isaac, in the other David severing the head of Goliath, and in the third Abel slain by his brother Cain. At this time Titian also painted a self-portrait, to leave as a reminder of himself for his children. Then in 1546, at the summons of Cardinal Farnese, he went to Rome where he found Giorgio Vasari who had returned from Naples and was working for the cardinal on the hall of the Palazzo della Cancellaria. The cardinal recommended Titian to Vasari, who then lovingly kept him company and took him to see the sights of Rome. After Titian had rested for some days he was given rooms in the Belvedere so that he could set his hand to painting once more the portrait of Pope Paul, at full length, with those of Farnese and of Duke Ottaviano. He executed these extremely well, and those lords were delighted with his work. And they persuaded him to paint, for presenting to the Pope, a half-length figure of Christ in the form of an Ecce Homo. This picture, either because the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Polidoro, and others had made him lose courage, or for some other reason, did not seem to the painters for all its qualities to be as good as many other of Titian’s paintings, especially the portraits. Then one day Michelangelo and Vasari went along to visit Titian in the Belvedere, where they saw a picture he had finished of a nude woman, representing Danaë, who had in her lap Jove transformed into a rain of gold; and naturally, as one would do with the artist present, they praised it warmly. After they had left they started to discuss Titian’s method and Buonarroti commended it highly, saying that his colouring and his style pleased him very much but that it was a shame that in Venice they did not learn to draw well from the beginning and that those painters did not pursue their studies with more method. For the truth was, he went on, that if Titian had been assisted by art and design as much as he was by nature, and especially in reproducing living subjects, then no one could achieve more or work better, for he had a fine spirit and a lively and entrancing style. To be sure, what Michelangelo said was nothing but the truth; for if an artist has not drawn a great deal and studied carefully selected ancient and modern works he cannot by himself work well from memory or enhance what he copies from life, and so give his work the grace and perfection of art which are beyond the reach of nature, some of whose aspects tend to be less than beautiful.

  Eventually, after he had received many gifts from those noblemen (including a fairly lucrative benefit for his son Pomponio) Titian left Rome to return to Venice. But first his second son, Orazio, did a very fine portrait of the accomplished violinist Battista Ceciliano, and he himself painted several portraits for Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino. Then when he reached Florence and saw the city’s rare works of art he was as impressed and amazed as he had been when he arrived in Rome. He visited Duke Cosimo (who was then at Poggio a Caiano) and offered to paint his portrait, but his Excellency showed no great interest, perhaps because he was anxious to avoid slighting the distinguished artists to be found in his city and dominion.

  After his return to Venice, Titian finished for the Marquis del Vasto a picture of an Allocution (as they called it) made by that nobleman to his troops. And after that he executed portraits of Charles V, of the Catholic king, and of many others. After these had been finished, for the church of Santa Maria Nuova in Venice he painted a small panel picture of the Annunciation; and then, with the assistance of his young men, for the refectory of SS. Giovanni e Paolo he painted a Last Supper. For the high altar of the church of San Sal vadore he painted an altarpiece of the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, and for another altar in the same church he did a painting of the Annunciation. But these works, though they have some good aspects, are not greatly esteemed by Titian himself, and in fact fall short of the perfection of his other pictures. In any case, since the works of Titian, especially the portraits, are without number it is hardly possible for me to mention them all; so I shall draw attention only to the most memorable, without putting them in the order in which they were painted, as it is not important to know which was first or which later.

  As was said, Titian many times painted the portrait of Charles V, and in the end he was summoned for that purpose to court where he portrayed Charles as he was during his later years. The invincible emperor was so pleased by Titian’s work that, once they had met, he would never be painted by anyone else; and every time Titian did his portra
it he made him a gift of a thousand crowns in gold. His Majesty also ennobled Titian, giving him a pension of two hundred crowns, secured on the Treasury of Naples. Similarly, when he portrayed Charles’s son, King Philip of Spain, Titian received from him an additional fixed allowance of two hundred crowns. So with the four hundred just mentioned and the three hundred that he has on the Fondaco de’ Tedeschi from the Signori of Venice, without exerting himself Titian has a regular yearly income of seven hundred crowns. Portraits of Charles V and King Philip were sent by Titian to the Lord Duke Cosiino, who has them in his wardrobe. Titian also executed portraits of Ferdinand, king of the Romans, who was later elected emperor, and of his sons, Maximilian (now emperor) and Maximilian’s brother. He did portraits of Queen Maria and, for the Emperor Charles V, of the duke of Saxony when he was a prisoner.