comfort.
There are even traditions of noble birth, and it is evident that Titian
was always a gentleman, though this did not prevent his being educated
as a craftsman, and when he was only ten years old he was sent down to
Venice to be apprenticed to a mosaicist.

It was a changing Venice to which Titian came as a boy; changing in its
life, its social and political conditions, and its art was faithfully
registering its aspirations and tastes. More than at any previous time,
it was calculated to impress a youth to whom it had been held up as the
embodiment of splendid sovereignty, and the difference between the
little hill-town set in the midst of its wild solitudes and the
brilliant city of the sea must have been dazzling and bewildering. A
new sense of intellectual luxury had awakened in the great commercial
centre. The Venetian love of splendour was displaying itself by the
encouragement and collection of objects of art, and both ancient and
modern works were in increasing request. On Gentile Bellini's and
Carpaccio's canvases we see the sort of people the Venetians were,
shrewd, quiet, splendour-loving, but business-like, the young men
fashionably dressed, fastidious connoisseurs, splendid patrons of art
and of religion. Buyers were beginning to find out what a delightful
decoration the small picture made, and that it was as much in place in
their own halls as over the altar of a chapel. The portrait, too, was
gaining in importance, and the idea of making it a pleasure-giving
picture, even more than a faithful transcript, was gathering ground. The
"Procession of the Relic" was still in Gentile's studio, but the Frari
"Madonna and Child" was just installed in its place. Carpaccio was
beginning his long series of St. Ursula, and the Bellini and Vivarini
were in keen rivalship.

Titian is said to have passed from the _bottega_ of Gentile to that of
Giovanni Bellini, but nothing in his style reminds us of the former, and
even his early work has very little that is really Bellinesque, whereas
from the very first he reflects the new spirit which emanated from
Giorgione. Titian was a year the elder, and we can divine the sympathy
that arose between the two when they came together in Bellini's School.
As soon as their apprenticeship was at an end they became partners. Fond
of pleasure and gaiety, loving splendour, dress, and amusement, they
were naturally congenial companions, and were drawn yet more closely
together by th