, and who undertook
a commission as one who conferred a coveted boon. Among those who
clustered closest round the popular favourite, no one did more to
enhance his position than Aretino, the brilliant unscrupulous debauchee,
wit, bully, blackmailer, but a man who, with all his faults, had
evidently his own power of fascination, and, the friend of princes,
must have been himself the prince of good company. Aretino, as far
as he could be said to be attached to any one, was consistent in his
attachment to Titian from the time they first met at the court of the
Gonzaga. He played the part of a chorus, calling attention to the great
painter's merits, jogging the memory of his employers as to payments,
and never ceasing to flatter, amuse, and please him. Titian, for his
part, shows himself equally devoted to Aretino's interests, and has left
various characteristic portraits of him, handsome and showy in his
prime, sensual and depraved as age overtook him.

In the spring of 1528 the confraternity of St. Peter Martyr invited
artists to send in sketches for an altarpiece to their patron-saint, in
SS. Giovanni and Paolo, to replace an old one by Jacobello del Fiore.
Palma Vecchio and Pordenone also competed, but Titian carried off the
prize. The picture was delivered in 1530, and during the autumn of 1529
Sebastian del Piombo had returned to Venice from Rome, and Michelangelo
had sought refuge there from Florence and had stayed for some months. A
quarrel with the monks over the price had delayed the picture, so that
it may quite probably have only been begun after intercourse with the
Roman visitors had given a fresh turn to Titian's ideas; for though he
never ceases to be himself, it certainly seems as if the genius of
Michelangelo had had some effect. From what we know of the altarpiece,
which perished by fire in 1867, but of which a good copy by Cigoli
remains, Titian embarked suddenly upon forms of Herculean strength
in violent action, but there his likeness to the Florentine ended;
the figures were, indeed, drawn with a deep, though not altogether
successful, attention to anatomy and foreshortening, but the picture
obtained its effect and derived its impressiveness from the setting in
which the figures were placed--the great trees, bending and straining,
the hurrying clouds, as if nature were in portentous harmony with the
sinister deed, and overhead the enchanting gleam of light which shot
downward and irradiated the face o