charger has probably been painted without any fresh reference to the
model. The writer is unable to agree with Crowe and Cavalcaselle when
they affirm that this _Salome_ is certainly painted by one of the
master's followers. The touch is assuredly Titian's own in the very late
time, and the canvas, though much slighter and less deliberate in
execution than its predecessors, is in some respects more spontaneous,
more vibrant in touch. Second to none as a work of art--indeed more
striking than any in the naive and fearless truth of the rendering--is
the _Lavinia Sarcinelli as a Matron_ in the Dresden Gallery. Morelli
surely exaggerates a little when he describes Lavinia here as a woman of
forty. Though the demure, bright-eyed maiden has grown into a
self-possessed Venetian dame of portentous dimensions, Sarcinelli's
spouse is fresh still, and cannot be more than two-or three-and-thirty.
This assumption, if accepted, would fix the time of origin of the
picture at about 1565, and, reasoning from analogies of technique, this
appears to be a more acceptable date than the year 1570-72, at which
Morelli would place it.

[Illustration: _Titian's Daughter Lavinia._]

One of the most important chapters in our master's life closed with the
death of Aretino, which took place suddenly on the 21st of October 1556.
He had been sitting at table with friends far into the night or morning.
One of them, describing to him a farcical incident of Rabelaisian
quality, he threw himself back in his chair in a fit of laughter, and
slipping on the polished floor, was thrown with great force on his head
and killed almost instantaneously. This was indeed the violent and
sudden death of the strong, licentious man; poetic justice could have
devised no more fitting end to such a life.

In the year 1558 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, for very sufficient reasons,
place the _Martyrdom of St. Lawrence_, now preserved in the hideously
over-ornate Church of the Jesuits at Venice. To the very remarkable
analysis which they furnish of this work, the writer feels unable to add
anything appreciable by way of comment, for the simple reason that
though he has seen it many times, on no occasion has he been fortunate
enough to obtain such a light as would enable him to judge the picture
on its own merits as it now stands.[48] Of a design more studied in its
rhythm, more akin to the Florentine and Roman schools, than anything
that has appeared since the _St. Peter Marty