In the year 1507, when the Emperor Maximilian was making war on the Venetians, Titian, as he relates himself, painted the "Angel Raphael, with Tobit and a Dog," in the Church of San Marziliano. There is a distant landscape in this picture, wherein San Giovanni Battista is seen at prayer in a wood; he is looking up to heaven, and his face is illumined by a light descending thence; some believe this picture to have been done before that on the "Exchange of the Germans," mentioned above, was commenced. Now, it chanced that certain gentlemen, not knowing that Giorgione no longer worked at this façade, and that Titian was doing it (nay, had already given that part over the Merceria to public view), met the former, and began as friends to rejoice with him, declaring that he was acquitting himself better on the side of the Merceria than he had done on that of the "Grand Canal;" which remark caused Giorgione so much vexation, that he would scarcely permit himself to be seen until the whole work was completed, and Titian had become generally known as the painter; nor did he thenceforward hold any intercourse with the latter and they were no longer friends. In the year 1508, Titian published a wood-engraving of the "Triumph of Faith;" it comprised a vast number of figures: our first Parents, the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Sybils, the Innocents, the Martyrs, the Apostles, and Our Saviour Christ borne in triumph by the four Evangelists, and the four Doctors, followed by the holy Confessors; here Titian displayed much boldness, a fine manner, and improving facility. I remember that Fra Bastiano del Piombo, speaking on this subject, told me that if Titian had then gone to Rome, and seen the works of Michael Angelo, with those of Raphael and the ancients, he was convinced, the admirable facility of his coloring considered, that he would have produced works of the most astonishing perfection; seeing that, as he well deserved to be called the most perfect imitator of Nature of our times, as regards coloring, he might thus have rendered himself equal to the Urbinese or Buonarroto, as regarded the great foundation of all, design. At a later period Titian repaired to Vicenza, where he painted "The Judgment of Solomon," on the Loggetta wherein the courts of justice are held; a very beautiful work. Returning to Venice, he then depicted the façade of the Germain; at Padua he painted certain frescos in the Church of Sant' Antonio, the subjects taken from the life of that saint; and in the Church of Santo Spirito he executed a small picture of San Marco seated in the midst of other saints, whose faces are portraits painted in oil with the utmost care; this picture has been taken for a work of Giorgione.