Giorgione Part 10

[140] The ruined condition of the Borghese "Lady" prevents any just appreciation of the interpretative qualities.

[141] _Venetian Painters_, p. 30.

[142] Leonardo, 1452-1519; Michel Angelo, 1475-1564; Giorgione, 1477-1510; Raphael, 1483-1520; Correggio, 1494-1534. Correggio, Raphael, and Giorgione died at the ages of forty, thirty-seven, and thirty-three years respectively. Those whom the G.o.ds love die young!

[143] Berenson: _Venetian Painters_, p. 29. I should prefer to subst.i.tute "ripening" for "ripened."

[144] Fry: _Giovanni Bellini_, p. 44.

[145] In S. Giovanni Crisostomo, Venice. It dates from 1513.

[146] Mary Logan: _Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court_, p.

13.

[147] Berenson: _Venetian Painters_, p. 48.

APPENDIX I

DOc.u.mENTS

The following correspondence between Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, and her agent Albano in Venice, is reprinted from the _Archivio Storico dell' Arte_, 1888, p. 47 (article by Sig. Alessandro Luzio):--

"Sp. Amice noster charissime; Intendemo che in le cose et heredita de Zorzo da Castelfrancho pictore se ritrova una pictura de una nocte, molto bella et singulare; quando coss fusse, desideraressimo haverla, per vi pregamo che voliati essere c.u.m Lorenzo da Pavia et qualche altro che habbi judicio et designo, et vedere se l'e cosa excellente, et trovando de s operiati il megio del m'co m. Carlo Valerio, nostro compatre charissimo, et de chi altro vi parera per apostar questa pictura per noi, intendendo il precio et dandone aviso. Et quando vi paresse de concludere il mercato, essendo cosa bona, per dubio non fusse levata da altri, fati quel che ve parera: che ne rendemo certe fareti c.u.m ogni avantagio e fede et c.u.m bona consulta. Ofteremone a vostri piaceri ecc.

"Mantua xxv. oct MDX."

The agent replies a few days later--

"Ill'ma et Exc'ma M'a mia obser'ma

"Ho inteso quanto mi scrive la Ex. V. per una sua de xxv. del pa.s.satto, facendome intender haver inteso ritrovarsi in le cosse et eredita del q. Zorzo de Castelfrancho una pictura de una notte, molto bella et singulare; che essendo coss si deba veder de haverla.

"A che rispondo a V. Ex. che ditto Zorzo mor piu d fanno da peste, et per voler servir quella ho parlato c.u.m alcuni mei amizi, che havevano grandissime praticha c.u.m lui, quali me affirmano non esser in ditta heredita tal pictura. Ben e vero che ditto Zorzo ne feze una a m. Thadeo Contarini, qual per la informatione ho autta non e molto perfecta sichondo vorebe quela. Un'altra pictura de la nocte feze ditto Zorzo a uno Victorio Becharo, qual per quanto intendo e de meglior desegnio et meglio finitta che non e quella del Contarini. Ma es...o...b..charo, al presente non si atrova in questa terra, et sichondo m'e stato afirmatto ne l'una ne l'altra non sono da vendere per pretio nesuno; per che li hanno fatte fare per volerle G.o.dere per loro; siche mi doglio non poter satisfar al dexiderio de quella ecc.

"Venetijs viii Novembris 1510.

"Servitor

"THADEUS ALBa.n.u.s."

From this letter we learn definitely (1) that Giorgione died in October-November 1510; (2) that he died of the plague.

I have pointed out in the text that the above description of the two pictures "de una notte" corresponds with the actual Beaumont and Vienna "Nativities," or "Adoration of the Shepherds," in which I recognise the hand of Giorgione.

The following is the only existing doc.u.ment in Giorgione's own handwriting. It was published by Molmenti in the _Bollettino delle Arti_, anno ii. No. 2, and reprinted by Conti, p. 50:--

"El se dichiara per el presente come el clarissimo Messer Aluixe di Sesti die a fare a mi Zorzon de Castelfrancho quatro quadri in quadrato con le geste di Daniele in bona pictura su telle, et li telleri sarano soministrati per dito m. Aluixe, il quale doveva stabilir la spexa di detti quadri quando serano compidi et di sua satisfatione entro il presente anno 1508.

"Io Zorzon de Castelfrancho di mia man scrissi la presente in Venetia li 13 febrar 1508."

Whether or no Giorgione ever completed these four square canvases with the story of Daniel is unknown. There is no trace of any such pictures in modern times.

APPENDIX II

DID t.i.tIAN LIVE TO BE NINETY-NINE YEARS OLD?

_Reprinted from the "Nineteenth Century" Jan_. 1902

There is something fascinating in the popular belief that t.i.tian, the greatest of all Venetian painters, reached the patriarchal age of ninety-nine years, and was actively at work up to the day of his death.

The text-books love to tell us the story of the great unfinished "Pieta"

with its pathetic inscription:

Quod t.i.tia.n.u.s inchoatum reliquit Palma reverenter absolvit Deoq. dicavit opus;

and traveller, guide-book in hand, and moralist, philosophy in head, alike muse upon a phenomenon so startlingly at variance with common experience.[148]

But, sentiment aside, is there any historical evidence that t.i.tian ever worked at his art in his hundredth year? that he even attained such a venerable age? The answer is of wider consequence than the mere question implies, for on the correct determination of t.i.tian's own chronology depends the history of the development of the entire Venetian school of painting in the early years of the sixteenth century. I say _early_, because it is the date of t.i.tian's birth, and not that of his death, which I shall endeavour to fix; the latter event is known beyond possibility of doubt to have occurred in August 1576. The question, therefore, to consider is, what justification, if any, is there for the universal belief that t.i.tian was born in 1476-7, just a hundred years previously?

Anyone, I think, who has ever looked into the history of t.i.tian's career must have been struck by the fact that for the first thirty-five years of his life (according to the usual chronology) there is absolutely no doc.u.mentary record relating to him, whether in the Venetian archives or elsewhere. Not a single letter, not a single contract, not a single mention of his name occurs from which we can so much as affirm his existence before the year 1511.

On the 2nd of December in that year "Io tician di Cador Dpntore" gives a receipt for money paid him on completion of some frescoes at Padua, and from this date on there are frequent letters and doc.u.ments in existence right down to 1576, the year of his death. Is it not somewhat strange that the first thirty-five years of his life (as is commonly believed) should be a total blank so far as records go? The fact becomes the more inexplicable when we find that during these early years some of his finest work is alleged to have been executed, and he must--if we accept the chronology of his biographers--have been well known to and highly esteemed by his contemporaries.[149] Moreover, it is not for want of diligent search amongst the archives that nothing has been found, for Italian and German students have alike sought, but in vain, to discover any doc.u.mentary evidence relating to his career before 1511.

The absence of any such trustworthy record has had its natural result.

Conjecture has run riot, and no two writers are agreed on the subject of the nature and development of t.i.tian's earlier art. This is the second disquieting fact which any careful student has to face. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, t.i.tian's most exhaustive biographers,[150] have filled up the first thirty-five years of his career in their own way, but their chronology has found no favour with later writers, such as Mr. Claude Phillips in England[151] or Dr. Georg Gronau in Germany,[152] both of whom have arrived at independent conclusions. Morelli again had his theories on the subject, and M. Lafenestre[153] has his, and the ordinary gallery catalogue is usually content to state inaccurate facts without further ado.

Now, if all these conscientious writers arrive at results so widely divergent, either their logic or their data must be wrong! One and all a.s.sume that t.i.tian lived into his hundredth year, and, therefore, was born in 1476-7; and starting with this theory as a fact, they have tried to fit in Vasari's account as best they can, and each has found a different solution of the problem. There is only one way out of this chaos of conjectures--we must see what is the evidence for the "centenarian" tradition, and if it can be shown that t.i.tian was really born later than 1476-7, then the silence of all records about him during an alleged period of thirty-five years will become at once more intelligible, and we may be able to explain some of the other anomalies which at present confront t.i.tian's biographers.

I propose to take the evidence in strictly chronological order.

The oldest contemporary account of t.i.tian's career is furnished by Lodovico Dolce in his _L'Aretino, o dialogo della pittura_, which was published at Venice in 1557. Dolce knew t.i.tian personally, and wrote his treatise just at the time when the painter was at the zenith of his fame. He is our sole authority for certain incidents of t.i.tian's early career: it will be well, therefore, to quote in full the opening paragraphs of his narrative:

"Being born at Cadore of honourable parents, he was sent when a child of nine years old by his father to Venice to the house of his father's brother ... in order that he might be put under some proper master to study painting; his father having perceived in him even at that tender age strong marks of genius towards the art.... His uncle directly carried the child to the house of Sebastiano, father of the _gentilissmo_ Valerio and of Francesco Zuccati (distinguished masters of the art of mosaic, by them brought to that perfection in which we now see the best pictures) to learn the principles of the art. From them he was removed to Gentile Bellini, brother of Giovanni, but much inferior to him, who at that time was at work with his brother in the Grand Council-Chamber. But t.i.tian, impelled by Nature to greater excellence and perfection in his art, could not endure following the dry and laboured manner of Gentile, but designed with boldness and expedition.

Whereupon Gentile told him he would make no progress in painting, because he diverged so much from the old style. Thereupon t.i.tian left the stupid _(goffo)_ Gentile, and found means to attach himself to Giovanni Bellini; but not perfectly pleased with his manner, he chose Giorgio da Castel Franco. t.i.tian then drawing and painting with Giorgione, as he was called, became in a short time so accomplished in art, that when Giorgione was painting the facade of the Fondaco de'

Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German Merchants, which looks towards the Grand Ca.n.a.l, t.i.tian was allotted the other side which faces the market-place, being at the time scarcely twenty years old. Here he represented a Judith of wonderful design and colour, so remarkable, indeed, that when the work came to be uncovered, it was commonly thought to be the work of Giorgione, and all the latter's friends congratulated him as being by far the best thing he had produced. Whereupon Giorgione, in great displeasure, replied that the work was from the hand of his pupil, who showed already how he could surpa.s.s his master, and, what was more, Giorgione shut himself up for some days at home, as if in despair, seeing that a young man knew more that he did."

Fortunately, the exact date can be fixed when the frescoes on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi were painted, for we have original records preserved from which we learn the work was begun in 1507 and completed towards the close of 1508.[154] If t.i.tian, then, was "scarcely twenty years old" in 1507-8, he must have been born in 1488-9. Dolce particularly emphasises his youthfulness at the time, calling him _un giovanetto_, a phrase he twice applies to him in the next paragraph, when he is describing the famous altar-piece of the 'a.s.sunta,' the commission for which, as we know from other sources, was given in 1516.