The New Student's Reference Work/Titian

Titian (tĭsh′ an) or Tiziano, Vecelli, one of the greatest of painters, was born at Capo del Cadore, Italy, in the Alps of Friuli, in 1477.  His father sent him to Venice to study painting when he was ten.  He was very quick at reproducing the special features of any artist’s work, and sometimes beat his masters.  The completion for the Venetian senate of a picture begun by Bellini, who was one of his teachers, gained him fame and an office worth 300 crowns a year.  He became acquainted with the duke of Ferrara and Ariosto, the poet, whose portraits he painted, and on his return to Venice painted one of his grandest pictures, the Assumption of the Virgin.  Pope Leo X and Raphael invited him to Rome, and Francis I to France.  He painted the portrait of Charles V, and spent three years in Spain.  There is no complete catalogue of Titian’s works, but over 600 of his pictures are known.  Far beyond his power as a designer and beyond his gifts of imagination are the splendor, boldness and truth of his coloring.  He died at Venice in 1576.  See his Life by Northcote.