The education he first received from Sebastiano Zuccati, a native of the Valteline, though supposed to have been of Trevigi,[47] and next from Gian Bellini, had the effect of rendering him a minute observer of every object falling under the senses. To such a degree of excellence did he carry it, that when, later in life, he wished to compete with Albert Durer, and produced, at Ferrara, the Christ to whom the Pharisee is seen offering the piece of money,[48] he executed it with so much exactness as to surpass even the minuteness which characterises that artist. Indeed, in several of those figures, the hairs might be numbered, the skin of the hands, the very pores of the flesh, and the reflection of objects in the pupils; yet with all this, the work failed not of success, for where the pictures of Durer appear to diminish and lose their effect at a distance, this improves in size, and grows, as it were, upon the spectator. But he never repeated any specimen in this style, adopting, as is well known, while yet very young, that free and unshackled manner, first originating with his fellow student, afterwards his rival, Giorgione. A few of the portraits, indeed, painted by Titian, during that short period, are not to be distinguished from those of Giorgione himself. I say during that period, because shortly afterwards he formed a new style, less bold, clear, and fiery, but one peculiarly his, the sweetness of which attracts the spectator more by its artless representation of truth, than by the novelty of its effect. The first specimen he is known to have produced altogether in the Titian manner, is preserved in the Sacristy of San Marziale, representing the archangel Raphael, with Tobias at his side, painted in the thirtieth year of his age. Following at a short interval, if we are to give credit to Ridolfi, he next produced that fine representation of our Lord, for the college of the Carità, one of the grandest pictures, and the richest, perhaps, in point of figures, which we have now to boast; many of them having since perished in different conflagrations.