sensitiveness of Lorenzo Lotto, who sees most willingly in his sitters
those qualities that are in the closest sympathy with his own
highly-strung nature, and loves to present them as some secret,
indefinable woe tears at their heart-strings. A strong element of the
Giorgionesque pathos informs still and gives charm to the Sciarra
_Violin-Player_ of Sebastiano del Piombo; only that there it is already
tempered by the haughty self-restraint more proper to Florentine and
Roman portraiture. There is little or nothing to add after this as to
the _Jeune Homme au Gant_, except that as a representation of
aristocratic youth it has hardly a parallel among the master's works
except, perhaps, a later and equally admirable, though less
distinguished, portrait in the Pitti.
[Illustration: From a Photograph by Braün Clement & Cie. Walter L.
Colls. ph. sc.
Jeune Homme au gant]
[Illustration: _A Concert. Probably by Titian. Pitti Palace, Florence.
From a Photograph by Alinari_.]
Not until Van Dyck, refining upon Rubens under the example of the
Venetians, painted in the _pensieroso_ mood his portraits of high-bred
English cavaliers in all the pride of adolescence or earliest manhood,
was this particular aspect of youth in its flower again depicted with
the same felicity.[32]
To Crowe and Cavalcaselle's pages the reader must be referred for a
detailed and interesting account of Titian's intrigues against the
venerable Giovanni Bellini in connection with the Senseria, or office of
broker, to the merchants of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. We see there how,
on the death of the martial pontiff, Julius the Second, Pietro Bembo
proposed to Titian to take service with the new Medici Pope, Leo the
Tenth (Giovanni de' Medici), and how Navagero dissuaded him from such a
step. Titian, making the most of his own magnanimity, proceeds to
petition the Doge and Signori for the first vacant broker's patent for
life, on the same conditions and with the same charges and exemptions as
are conceded to Giovanni Bellini. The petition is presented on the 31st
of May 1513, and the Council of Ten on that day moves and carries a
resolution accepting Titian's offer with all the conditions attached.
Though he has arrived at the extreme limit of his splendid career, old
Gian Bellino, who has just given new proof of his still transcendent
power in the great altar-piece of S. Giovanni Crisostomo (1513), which
is in some respects the finest of all his works, declines to sit still
under the encroachments of his dangerous competitor, younger than
himself by half a century. On the 24th of March 1514 the Council of Ten
revokes its decree of the previous May, and formally declares that
Titian is not to receive his broker's patent on the first vacancy, but
must wait his turn. Seemingly nothing daunted, Titian petitions again,
asking for the reversion of the particular broker's patent which will
become vacant on the death of Giovanni Bellini; and this new offer,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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