Paolo the deacons giving alms and receiving
petitions curiously resemble in type and expression the ecclesiastics
we see to-day.

Lotto was now an accepted member of Titian's set, and Aretino, in a
letter dated 1548, writes that Titian values his taste and judgment as
that of no other; but Aretino, with his usual mixture of connoisseurship
and clever spite, goes on to insinuate accidentally, as it were, what he
himself knew perfectly well, that Lotto was not considered on a par with
the masters of the first rank. "Envy is not in your breast," he says,
"rather do you delight to see in other artists certain qualities which
you do not find in your own brush, ... holding the second place in the
art of painting is nothing compared to holding the first place in the
duties of religion."

An interesting codex or commentary tells us that Lotto never received
high prices for his work, and we hear of him hawking pictures about in
artistic circles, putting them up in raffles, and leaving a number with
Jacopo Sansovino in the hope that he might hear of buyers. His work
ended as it had begun, in the Marches. He undertook commissions at
Recanati, Ancona, and Loreto, and in September 1554 he concluded a
contract with the Holy House at Loreto, by which, in return for rooms
and food, he made over himself and all his belongings to the care of the
fraternity, "being tired of wandering, and wishing to end his days in
that holy place." He spent the last four years of his life at Loreto
as a votary of the Virgin, painting a series of pictures which are
distinguished by the same sort of apparent looseness and carelessness
which we noticed in Titian's late style; a technique which, as in
Titian's case, conceals a profound knowledge of plastic modelling.

Though Lotto executed an immense number of important and very beautiful
sacred works, his portraits stand apart, and are so interesting to the
modern mind that one is tempted to linger over them. Other painters give
us finer pictures; in none do we feel so anxious to know who the sitters
were and what was their story. Lotto has nothing of the Pagan quality
which marks Giorgione and Titian; he is a born psychologist, and as such
he witnesses to an attitude of mind in the Italy of his day which is of
peculiar interest to our own. Lotto's bystanders, even in his sacred
scenes, have nothing in common with Titian's "chorus"; they have the
characterisation of distinct individuals, and when he is c