Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/400

388 In the same Church, and in the Chapel of the Pesari family, Titian painted a Madonna with the Divine Child in her arms; San Piero and San Giorgio are beside her, and the owners of the Chapel are kneeling around the group. These persons are all portraits from the life; among them are the Bishop of Baffo and his brother, who had just then returned from the victory which that Bishop had obtained over the Turks. At the little Church of San Niccolò in the same Convent, Titian also painted a picture, comprising figures of San Niccolò, San Francesco, Santa Caterina and San Sebastiano; the latter is nude, and has been exactly copied from the life without the slightest admixture of art, no efforts for the sake of beauty have been sought in any part, trunk or limbs: all is as Nature left it, so that it might seem to be a sort of cast from the life; it is nevertheless considered very fine, and the figure of Our Lady with the Infant in her arms, whom all the other figures are looking at, is also accounted most beautiful. This picture was drawn on wood by Titian himself, and was then engraved and painted by others.

After the completion of these works, our artist painted, for the Church of San Rocco, a figure of Christ bearing his Cross; the Saviour has a rope round his neck, and is dragged forward by a Jew; many have-thought this a work of Giorgione: it has become an object of the utmost devotion in Venice, and has received more crowns as offerings than have been earned by Titian and Giorgione both, through the whole course of their lives. Now Titian had taken the Portrait of Bembo, then Secretary to Pope Leo X., and was by him invited to Rome, that he might see the city, with Raffaello da Urbino and other distinguished persons; but the artist having delayed his journey until 1520, when the Pope and Raffaello were both dead, put it off for that time altogether.

For the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore he painted a picture of St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness; there is an Angel beside him that appears to be living; and a distant Landscape, with trees on the bank of a river, which are very graceful. He took portraits of the Prince Grimani and Loredano, which were considered admirable, and