Vasari tells us that the painter's income was considerable. Charles V. paid a thousand gold crowns for every portrait of himself and, when he conferred the patent of nobility upon the painter, he accompanied it with an annual gift of two hundred crowns. Philip II., son of the great Emperor, added another two hundred annually, the German merchants gave him three hundred, so that he had seven hundred crowns a year without taking into account the commissions that came to him on every side, and, as he was painting for the richest and most generous people of his generation, his annual income must have been very considerable. And yet Titian's own correspondence, of which a part has been preserved, shows that the State grants were not always paid regularly. It is of course far more easy for an arbitrary ruler to make gifts to his favourites than it is for the State Treasury to respond to the demands that must needs follow each grant, and Spanish finances have always been difficult to administer. As he grew older and his hand lost part at least of its cunning, Titian depended more and more upon pupils, but in this he was only following the custom of his time. It is said that a clever German artist, who worked in his studio, was responsible for the greater part of several of the later pictures. The Council of Ten though they had taken from him the office of Painter of Doges and had given it to Tintoretto, offered him a commission in the late 'sixties; even if they had a grievance against him they could not afford to nourish it. Then again if Titian was not always prompt in doing the work for which he was paid, even if he employed pupils to a greater extent than seemed necessary to those who had to pay for the finished canvas, it must have been hard to quarrel with him, for his personality would seem to have been most engaging. He was an excellent musician as well as a good host, Paolo Veronese has included him in the famous "Marriage in Cana" (Louvre) playing a double bass. Moreover Titian was a courtier whose correspondence, although it dealt so largely with matter of finance, lacks none of the stilted graces of the time, and these may have helped to conciliate angry patrons. He seems to have been an affectionate father, and if he had any besetting sin it was love of money, his anxiety in this respect being increased by the fact that he was not always able to collect the accounts due to him. Yet he saved enough to buy land round his birthplace and it is reported that he went to Cadore whenever he had the opportunity. Clearly an appreciative sense of the perennial peace of the Dolomites never left him.