have no peace nor conceal his anxiety, insomuch that his friends could never get him to visit them; and at length tormented by these feelings of jealousy, he, after a short time, fell ill and died. I take this from Felibien, but as Vasari does not corroborate it, I am in some doubt of the extent to which his jealousy carried him. Vasari says that Pierino died in consequence of hard work at his profession, and disorders incidental to his debaucheries. His death took

place in 1547.

From a letter, in which Aretin acquainted him, in April 1546, with the death of the Marquis of Guasto, it appears that Titian did not leave Rome before May, after having finished the many works he did for the Farnese family, whose kindness did not this time confine itself to barren offers; for they rewarded him magnificently, and assured him of another benefice for his son Pomponio, which promise was not however carried into effect till two years after, and that at the pressing entreaties of the Duke of Urbino, and when Titian had gone to Vienna. Ridolfi says that Paul the Third offered to nominate Pomponio Bishop of Ceneda, which was refused by his honourable father, who was acquainted with the bad habits and expensive living of his son. Besides the testimony of Car

dinal Bembo, who in a letter to Girolamo Quirini says, "It It remains for me to add that your and our Titian is here, who says that he has great obligations to you, as being the cause of his visit to Rome. He has to-day seen such fine antiques that he is overwhelmed in astonishment"-it appears from more than one letter of Aretin's, how highly Titian valued the fine things he saw at Rome, and how vexed he was at not having gone there twenty years before; to such a degree that Aretin, fearing he would continue to delay his return, entreated him to get away from the priests, now writing to him to come and finish the portrait of the new Doge, who warmly entreated it of him, and now putting him in mind of some works promised to Ludovico dall' Armi and the like. Not finding any letter of Aretin's to him after April, except one to invite him to supper, it is probable. that at the end of that month, or at farthest in May, Titian taking the way of Florence, where he wished to amuse himself for a few days in looking at the rare works collected with unwonted liberality in the course of a century by the Medicis family and other illustrious citizens. Having gone to Poggio in Cajano, where Duke Cosmo was then at his country-seat, he offered to do his portrait;

returned to Venice,

about which that prince, not seeming to care much, as he did not wish to discourage the artists of his own state by seeming to hold them in small estimation, Titian hastened to return to Venice, whither family-affection, the wishes of his friends, and many works which on his departure for Rome he had left unfinished, called him.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

SHORT NOTICE RESPECTING THE PRIVATE LIFE, INCLINATIONS, AND HABITS OF TITIAN-PORTRAIT OF DOGE DONATO-VARIOUS PICTURES FOR GUIDOBALDO THE SECOND, DUKE OF URBINO-TWO FOR CHARLES THE FIFTH.

TITIAN had now attained the age of seventy without having lost any of his vigour of mind or body. The pensions assigned him by the most Serene Senate of Venice and the Emperor, and (more than these) the immense presents he had received for the many works done in the space of fifty years, had enabled him to live in a handsome style; besides that Pomponio, his elder son, was in possession of good ecclesiastical revenues, and Horatio, his other son, had already the name of a successful painter. But neither the being raised to competence of fortune, which, however, is generally attendant on the better sort of artists, nor the favour of

princes, nor the esteem of the learned, nor the celebrity of his name, nor the fortune given to his sons, nor the allurements of his friends, who had such influence over him, ever took him a single instant from the love and glory of the art; so that when it appeared reasonable that he should think of enjoying himself in the maturity of his old age in that honourable leisure which he had earned by such hard labour, we shall see him even then undertaking works of the greatest importance, and bringing them to the greatest perfection. And, when at the age of eighty he lost Aretin, and thirteen years after Giacomo Sansovino, the most delightful companions of his old age, he found no consolation for such great losses but in the love of his art, for which at ninety-nine he preserved that fond attachment which had at seven placed the pencil in his hand to trace the first lines.

I have already touched upon his family, on his free converse with his friends, on his sweet and gentle manners; but I should not make known the inclinations and habits of Titian, if after having shown his merits, and, as I may call it, his professional life, up to the age of seventy, I did not briefly describe also his private life. In this I shall perhaps be blamed