e with the
Fondaco dei Tedeschi frescoes. In 1511 he went to Padua. In 1512 he
obtained a sinecure in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi and was appointed a
State artist, his first task being the completion of certain pictures
left unfinished by his predecessor Giovanni Bellini, and in 1516 he was
put in possession of a patent granting him a painting monopoly, with a
salary of 120 crowns and 80 crowns in addition for the portrait of each
successive Doge. Thereafter his career was one long triumph and his
brush was sought by foreign kings and princes as well as the aristocracy
of Venice. Honours were showered upon him at home and abroad, and
Charles V made him a Count and ennobled his progeny. He married and had
many children, his favourite being, as with Tintoretto, a daughter,
whose early death left him, again as with Tintoretto, inconsolable. He
made large sums and spent large sums, and his house was the scene of
splendid entertainments. It still stands, not far from the Jesuits'
church, but it is now the centre of a slum, and his large garden, which
extended to the lagoon where the Fondamenta Nuovo now is, has been built
over.

Titian's place in art is high and unassailable. What it would have been
in colour without Giorgione we cannot say; but Giorgione could not
affect his draughtsmanship. As it is, the word Titianesque means
everything that is rich and glorious in paint. The Venetians, with their
ostentation, love of pageantry, and intense pride in their city and
themselves, could not have had a painter more to their taste. Had
Giorgione lived he would have disappointed them by his preoccupation
with romantic dreams; Bellini no doubt did disappoint them by a certain
simplicity and divinity; Tintoretto was stern and sparing of gorgeous
hues. But Titian was all for sumptuousness.

Not much is known of his inner life. He seems to have been over-quick to
suspect a successful rival, and his treatment of the young Tintoretto,
if the story is true, is not admirable. He was more friendly with
Aretino than one would expect an adorner of altars to be. His love of
money grew steadily stronger. As an artist he was a pattern, for he was
never satisfied with his work but continually experimented and sought
for new secrets, and although quite old when he met Michael Angelo in
Rome he returned with renewed ambitions. Among his last words, on his
death-bed, were that he was at last almost ready to begin.

As it happens, it is the pyramid