the Virgin in the Temple. Accademia
delle Belle Arti, Venice. From a Photograph by Naya._]

But now to discuss a very curious point in connection with the actual
state of Titian's important canvas. It has been very generally
assumed--and Crowe and Cavalcaselle have set their seal on the
assumption--that Titian painted his picture for a special place in the
Albergo (now Accademia), and that this place is now architecturally as
it was in Titian's time. Let them speak for themselves. "In this room
(in the Albergo), which is contiguous to the modern hall in which
Titian's _Assunta_ is displayed, there were two doors for which
allowance was made in Titian's canvas; twenty-five feet--the length of
the wall--is now the length of the picture. When this vast canvas was
removed from its place, the gaps of the doors were filled in with new
linen, and painted up to the tone of the original...."

That the pieces of canvas to which reference is here made were new, and
not Titian's original work from the brush, was of course well known to
those who saw the work as it used to hang in the Accademia. Crowe and
Cavalcaselle give indeed the name of a painter of this century who is
responsible for them. Within the last three years the new and
enterprising director of the Venice Academy, as part of a comprehensive
scheme of rearrangement of the whole collection, caused these pieces of
new canvas to be removed and then proceeded to replace the picture in
the room for which it is believed to have been executed, fitting it into
the space above the two doors just referred to. Many people have
declared themselves delighted with the alteration, looking upon it as a
tardy act of justice done to Titian, whose work, it is assumed, is now
again seen just as he designed it for the Albergo. The writer must own
that he has, from an examination of the canvas where it is now placed,
or replaced, derived an absolutely contrary impression. First, is it
conceivable that Titian in the heyday of his glory should have been
asked to paint such a picture--not a mere mural decoration--for such a
place? There is no instance of anything of the kind having been done
with the canvases painted by Gentile Bellini, Carpaccio, Mansueti, and
others for the various _Scuole_ of Venice. There is no instance of a
great decorative canvas by a sixteenth century master of the first
rank,[28] other than a ceiling decoration, being degraded in the first
instance to such a use. And