ng, filled with
loving detail, but grander, more mysterious. In the "St. Jerome" in
Paris the old Saint kneels in wild and lonely surroundings, and the
moon, slowly rising behind the dark trees, sends a sharp, silver ray
across the crucifix. The "Supper at Emmaus" has the grandiose effect
that is given by avoidance of detail and simplification of method.

Titian painted several portraits of himself, and we know what sort of
stately figure was presented by the old man of seventy who, at Christmas
in 1547, set forth to ride across the Alps in the depths of winter to
obey Charles V.'s call to Augsburg. The excitement of the public was
great at his departure, and Aretino describes how his house was besieged
for the sketches and designs he left behind him. For nearly forty years
Titian was employed by the House of Hapsburg. He had been working for
Charles since 1530, and when the Emperor abdicated, his employment by
Philip II. lasted till his death. The palace inventory of 1686 contained
seventy-six Titians, and though probably not all were genuine, yet an
immense number were really by him, and the gallery, even now, is richer
in his works than any other.

The great hall of the Pardo must have been a wonderful sight, with
Titian's finest portrait of himself in the midst, and the magnificent
portraits and sacred and allegorical pieces which he continued from this
time forward to contribute to it. In this year, which was the last
before Charles's abdication, and during this visit to South Germany, he
painted the great equestrian portrait of the Emperor on the field of
Muehlberg, and two years later came the first of his many portraits of
Philip II. The face, in the first sketch, is laid in with a sort of
fury of impressionism, and in the parade portrait the sitter is
realised as a man of great distinction. Ugly and sensual as he is,
we never tire of looking at Titian's conception--a full length of
distinguished mien rendered attractive by magnificent colour. Everything
in it lives, and the slender, aristocratic hands are, as Morelli says, a
whole biography in themselves.

The splendid series of allegorical subjects which Titian contributed to
the Pardo, while he was still supplying sacred pictures and altarpieces
to Venice and the neighbouring mainland, are among his most mature and
important works. Never has his gamut of tones been fuller and stronger
than in the "Jupiter and Antiope," or the "Venus of the Pardo" as it is