After Raphael's death Sebastian was called the first painter in Rome, and
was made a _piombatore_. It was necessary to be an ecclesiastic to hold
this office, and it is on account of this that he gave up his real name,
and became a friar. He wrote to Michael Angelo: "If you were to see me as
an honorable lord, you would laugh at me. I am the finest ecclesiastic in
all Rome. Such a thing had never come into my mind. But God be praised in
eternity! He seemed especially to have thus decreed it. And, therefore, so
be it." It is not strange that he should have been so resigned to a high
office and a salary of eight hundred scudi a year!

Another Venetian, of the same time with Giorgione, was JACOPO PALMA,
called IL VECCHIO, or the elder (about 1480-1528). He was born near
Bergamo, but as an artist he was a Venetian. We do not know with whom he
studied, and he was not a very great man, nor was he employed by the
state--but he dwelt much in the palaces of noble families and did much
work for them. When he died he left forty-four unfinished paintings.

His female figures are his best works, and one of his fine pictures at
Dresden, called the "Three Graces," is said to represent his daughters.
The work which is usually called his masterpiece is an altar-piece in the
Church of Santa Maria Formosa, in Venice; the St. Barbara in the centre is
very beautiful, and is said to have been painted from his daughter
Violante.

[Illustration: FIG. 45.--PORTRAIT OF TITIAN. _From the etching by Agostino
Caracci._]

The greatest master of the Venetian school is called TITIAN, though his
real name was TIZIANO VECELLI, and sometimes Cadore is added to this,
because of his having been born in that village (1477-1576). His family
was noble and their castle was called Lodore, and was in the midst of a
large estate surrounded by small houses; in one of these last, which is
still preserved, the painter was born.

As a child he was fond of drawing, and so anxious to color his pictures
that he squeezed the juices from certain flowers, and used them as paints.
When but nine years old he was taken to Venice to study, and from this
time was called a Venetian; he is said by some writers to be the first
portrait-painter of the world.

He first studied under Sebastian Zuccato, and then under the Bellini,
where he was a fellow-pupil with Giorgione, and the two became devoted
friends, at the time when they were just coming to be men and were filled
wit