IV. The Holy Family 34 In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence V. The Marriage of St. Catherine 40 In the Pitti Palace, Florence VI. Flora 50 In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence VII. Sacred and Profane Love 60 In the Borghese Palace, Rome VIII. The Holy Family 70 In the National Gallery, London I Titian Vecelli, undeniably the greatest Venetian painter of the Renaissance, leaps into the full light of the movement. To be sure he appears full-grown, as Venus is said to have done when she appeared above the foam in the waters of Cythera, or Pallas Athene when she sprang from the brain of Zeus, but happily he was destined to live to a great age. We have few and scanty records to tell of the very early days. So wide was his circle of patrons in after life, so intimate his acquaintance with the leading men of his generation, that it is not difficult to find out what manner of man he was without the aid of his pictures, even though they have a very definite story to tell the painstaking student. There are well over one hundred important works, dealing with the life and art of Titian, written by enthusiasts in half-a-dozen languages, for of all the artists of the Renaissance he makes perhaps the most direct appeal to the man _moyen sensuel_. [Illustration: PLATE II.--LA BELLA (In the Pitti Palace, Florence) This wonderful example of Titian's portrait painting may be seen in the Pitti Palace to-day, and was probably commissioned by the Duke of Urbino somewhere about the year 1536. It will be noticed by students of Titian that the model for this portrait appears in some of the master's pictures as Venus.] Fearless and unashamed, he gave the world pagan pictures, entering into the joy of their creation with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy who has found an orchard gate unlocked. To be sure the spirit of joy and of youth passed with the years, even this most fortunate of painters knew trouble, domestic and financial, but the beauty remained, expressing the fullest vigour of the Renaissance movement, the supreme achievement of human loveliness, the splendour of men and women.