ortant command, and his brother Francesco, who had already made some
progress as an artist, threw down his brush and became a soldier. Titian
was not one of those who took up arms, but his thoughts must have been
full of the attack and defence in his mountain fastnesses, and he must
have anxiously awaited news of his father's troops and of the squadrons
of Maso of Ferrara, under whose colours Francesco was riding. Francesco
made a reputation as a distinguished soldier, and was severely wounded,
and when peace was made, Titian, "who loved him tenderly," persuaded him
to return to the pursuit of art.

The ratification of the League of Cambray, in which Julius II.,
Maximilian, and Ferdinand of Naples combined against the power of
Venice, was disastrous for a time to the city and to the artists who
depended upon her prosperity. Craftsmen of all kinds first fled to her
for shelter, then, as profits and orders fell off, they left to look
elsewhere for commissions. An outbreak of plague, in which Giorgione
perished, went further to make Venice an undesirable home, and at this
time Sebastian del Piombo left for Rome, Lotto for the Romagna, and
Titian for Padua.

We may believe that Titian never felt perfectly satisfied with
fresco-painting as a craft, for when he was given a commission to fresco
the halls of the Santo, the confraternity of St. Anthony, patron-saint
of Padua, he threw off beautifully composed and spirited drawings, but
he left the execution of them chiefly to assistants, among whom the
feeble Domenico Campagnola, a painter whom he probably picked up at
Padua, is conspicuous. Even where the landscape is best, as in "S.
Anthony restoring a Youth," the drawing and composition only make us
feel how enchanting the scene would have been in oils on one of Titian's
melting canvases. In those frescoes which he executed himself while his
interest was still fresh, the "Miracle which grants Speech to an Infant"
is the most Giorgionesque. Up to this time he had preserved the
straight-cut corsage and the actual dress of his contemporaries, after
the practice of Giorgione; he keeps, too, to his companion's plan of
design, placing the most important figures upon one plane, close to the
frame and behind a low wall or ledge which forms a sort of inner frame
and with a distant horizon. In the Paduan frescoes he makes use of this
plan, and the straight clouds, the spindly trees, and the youths in gay
doublets are all reminiscent o