then Vasari, who saw the picture in Venice,
and correctly characterises it, would surely have noticed such an
extraordinary peculiarity as the abnormal shape necessitated by the two
doors. It is incredible that Titian, if so unpalatable a task had indeed
been originally imposed upon him, should not have designed his canvas
otherwise. The hole for the right door coming in the midst of the
monumental steps is just possible, though not very probable. Not so that
for the left door, which, according to the present arrangement, cuts the
very vitals out of one of the main groups in the foreground. Is it not
to insult one of the greatest masters of all time thus to assume that he
would have designed what we now see? It is much more likely that Titian
executed his _Presentation_ in the first place in the normal shape, and
that vandals of a later time, deciding to pierce the room in the Scuola
in which the picture is now once more placed with one, or probably two,
additional doors, partially sacrificed it to the structural requirements
of the moment. Monstrous as such barbarism may appear, we have already
seen, and shall again see later on, that it was by no means uncommon in
those great ages of painting, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

When the untimely death of Pordenone, at the close of 1538, had
extinguished the hopes of the Council that the grandiose facility of
this master of monumental decoration might be made available for the
purposes of the State, Titian having, as has been seen, made good his
gravest default, was reinstated in his lucrative and by no means onerous
office. He regained the _senseria_ by decree of August 28, 1539. The
potent d'Avalos, Marques del Vasto, had in 1539 conferred upon Titian's
eldest son Pomponio, the scapegrace and spendthrift that was to be, a
canonry. Both to father and son the gift was in the future to be
productive of more evil than good. At or about the same time he had
commissioned of Titian a picture of himself haranguing his soldiers in
the pompous Roman fashion; this was not, however, completed until 1541.
Exhibited by d'Avalos to admiring crowds at Milan, it made a sensation
for which there is absolutely nothing in the picture, as we now see it
in the gallery of the Prado, to account; but then it would appear that
it was irreparably injured in a fire which devastated the Alcazar of
Madrid in 1621, and was afterwards extensively repainted. The Marquis
and his son Francesco,