you; and I accompany my congratulations with the picture of Venus and Adonis, which I hope will be looked upon by you with the favorable eye you are accustomed to cast upon the works of your servant

     "Titian

    ."

   According to Palomino, Philip was sitting on his throne, in council, when the news arrived of the disastrous conflagration of the palace of the Prado, in which so many works by the greatest masters were destroyed. He earnestly demanded if the Titian Venus was among those saved, and on being informed it was, he exclaimed, "Then every other loss may be supported!"

   Palomino says that when Titian's famous painting of the Last Supper arrived at the Escurial, it was found too large to fit the panel in the refectory, where it was designed to hang. The king, Philip II., proposed to cut it to the proper size. El Mudo (the dumb painter), who was present, to prevent the mutilation of so capital a work, made earnest signs of intercession with the king, to be permitted to copy it, offering to do it in the space of six months. The king expressed some hesitation, on account of the length of time required for the work, and was proceeding to put his design in execution, when El Mudo repeated his supplications in behalf of his favorite master with more fervency than ever, offering to complete the copy in less time than he at first demanded, ten

   dering at the same time his head as the punishment if he failed. The offer was not accepted, and execution was performed on Titian, accompanied with the most distressing attitudes and distortions of El Mudo.

   Titian continued to paint to the last year of his long life, and many writers, fond of the marvellous, assert that his faculties and his powers continued to the last. Vasari, who saw him in 1566 for the last time, said he "could no longer recognize Titian in Titian." Lanzi says, "There remains in the church of S. Salvatore, one of these pictures (executed towards the close of his life), of the Annunciation, which attracts the attention only from the name of the master. Yet when he was told by some one that it was not, or at least did not appear to have been executed by his hand, he was so much irritated that, in a fit of senile indignation, he seized his pencil and inscribed upon it, 'Tizianus fecit, fecit.' Still the most experienced judges are agreed that much may be learned, even from his latest works, in the same manner as the poets pronounce judgment upon the Odyssey, the product of old age, but still by 

 Prev. P 8/171 next