n Venice. 1560-1590. The parentage of this
artist would seem to promise her talent and insure its culture. She was
the daughter of Jacopo Robusti, better known as "Il Tintoretto," who has
been called "the thunder of art," and who avowed his ambition to equal
"the drawing of Michael Angelo and the coloring of Titian."

The portrait of Marietta Robusti proves her to have been justly
celebrated for her beauty. Her face is sweet and gentle in expression.
She was sprightly in manner and full of enthusiasm for anything that
interested and attracted her; she had a good talent for music and a
charming voice in singing.

Her father's fondness for her made him desire her constant companionship,
and at times he permitted her to dress as a boy and share with him
certain studies that she could only have made in this disguise.
Tintoretto carefully cultivated the talents of his daughter, and some of
the portraits she painted did her honor. That of Marco dei Vescovi first
turned public attention to her artistic merits. The beard was especially
praised and it was even said by good judges that she equalled her father.
Indeed, her works were so enthusiastically esteemed by some critics that
it is difficult to make a just estimate of her as an artist, but we are
assured of her exquisite taste in the arrangement of her pictures and of
the rare excellence of her coloring.

It soon became the fashion in the aristocratic circles of Venice to sit
for portraits to this fascinating artist. Her likeness of Jacopo Strada,
the antiquarian, was considered a worthy gift for the Emperor Maximilian,
and a portrait of Marietta was hung in the chamber of his Majesty.
Maximilian, Philip II. of Spain, and the Archduke Ferdinand, each in
turn invited Marietta to be the painter of his Court.

Tintoretto could not be induced to be separated from his daughter, and
the honors she received so alarmed him that he hastened to marry her to
Mario Augusti, a wealthy German jeweller, upon the condition that she
should remain at home.

But the Monarch who asks no consent and heeds no refusal claimed this
daughter so beloved. She died at thirty, and it is recorded that both her
father and her husband mourned for her so long as they lived. Marietta
was buried in the Church of Santa Maria dell' Orto, where, within sight
of her tomb, are several of her father's pictures.

Tintoretto painting his daughter's portrait after her death has been the
subject of pictures by a