Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/53

 TITIAN 229 vention of Pietro Aretino, was invited to that city by the Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, and there he made a magnificent portrait of his majesty in full armor. This gave so much satisfaction that the artist received a present of a thousand crowns for the same. Out of these he had subsequently to give the half to Al- fonso Lombardi, the sculptor, who had made a model of that monarch to be exe- cuted in marble. Having returned to Venice, Titian there found that many gentlemen had be- gun to favor Pordenone, commending exceedingly the works executed by that artist in the ceiling of the Hall of the Pregai, and elsewhere. They had also pro- cured him the commission for a small picture in the Church of San Giovanni Elemosynario, which they intended him to paint in competition with one repre- senting that saint in his episcopal habits, which had previously been executed there by Titian But whatever care and pains Pordenone took, he could not equal nor even approach the work of the former. Titian was then appointed to paint a picture of the Annunciation for the Church of Santa Maria degli An- geli, at Murano ; but those who gave the commission for the work, not wishing to pay so much as five hundred crowns, which Titian required as its price, he sent it, by the advice of Pietro Aretino, as a gift to Charles V., who being greatly de- lighted with the work, made him a present of two thousand crowns. The place which the picture was to have occupied at Murano was then filled by one from the hand of Pordenone. When the emperor, some time after this, returned with his army from Hun- gary, and was again at Bologna, holding a conference with Clement VII., he desired to have another portrait taken of him by Titian, who, before he departed from the city, also painted that of the Cardinal Ippolito de Medici in the Hun- garian dress, with another of the same prelate fully armed, which is somewhat smaller than the first ; these are both now in the Guardaroba of Duke Cosimo. He painted the portraits of Alfonso, Marquis of Davalos, and of Pietro Aretino, at the same period, and these things having made him known to Federigo Gon- zaga, Duke of Mantua, he entered the service of the latter, and accompanied him to his states. At Mantua our artist made a portrait of the duke, which appears to breathe, and afterward executed that of his brother, the cardinal. These be- ing finished, he painted twelve beautiful " Heads of the Twelve Caesars," to deco- rate one of the rooms erected by Giulio Romano, and when they were done, Giulio painted a " Story from the Lives of the Emperors" beneath each head. The productions, but more especially the portraits, of Titian are so numerous that it would be almost impossible to make the record of them all. I will, there- fore, speak of the principal only, and that without order of time, seeing that it does not much signify to tell which was painted earlier and which later. He took the portrait of Charles V. several times, as we have said, and was finally invited by that monarch to his court ; there he painted him as he was in those last years ; and so much was that most invincible emperor pleased with the man- ner of Titian, that once he had been portrayed by him, he would never permit himself to be taken by any other person. Each time that Titian painted the