ed to Giorgione's sensitive nature, and we
find him developing this side of his art in the Beaumont "Adoration,"
and the National Gallery "Epiphany," both of which are clearly early
productions. But there is a gap of a few years between the Uffizi
pictures and the London ones, for the latter are maturer in every way,
and it is clear that the interval must have been spent in constant
practice. Yet we cannot point with certainty to any of the other
pictures in our list as standing midway in development, and here it is
that a lacuna exists in the artist's career. Two or three years,
possibly more, remain unaccounted for, just at a period, too, when the
young artist would be most impressionable. I am inclined to think that
he may have painted the "Birth of Paris" during these years, but we have
only the copy of a part of the composition to go by, and the statement
of the Anonimo that the picture was one of Giorgione's early works.

The "Adrastus and Hypsipyle" must also be a youthful production prior to
1500, and in the direction of portraiture we have the Berlin "Young
Man," which, for reasons already given, must be placed quite early. It
is not possible to assign exact dates to any of these works, all that
can be said with any certainty is that they fall within the last decade
of the fifteenth century, and illustrate the rapid development of
Giorgione's art up to his twenty-fourth year.

A further stage in his evolution is reached in the Castelfranco
"Madonna," the first important undertaking of which we have some record.
Tradition connects the painting of this altar-piece with an event of the
year 1504, the death of the young Matteo Costanzo, whose family, so it
is said, commissioned Giorgione to paint a memorial altar-piece, and
decorate the family chapel at Castelfranco with frescoes. Certain it is
that the arms of the Costanzi appear in the picture, but the evidence
which connects the commission with the death of Matteo seems to rest
mainly on his alleged likeness to the S. Liberale in the picture, a
theory, we may remark, which is quite consistent with Matteo being still
alive. Considering the extraordinary rapidity of the artist's
development, it would be more natural to place the execution of this
work a year or two earlier than 1504, but, in any case, we may accept it
as typical of Giorgione's style in the first years of the century. The
"Judith" (at St. Petersburg), as we have already seen, probably
immediately