Herbert F. Cook in his Giorgione (London, 1907), gives this painting to Giorgione, sustaining the claim by the following: “The marble parapet is a feature in Giorgione’s work, but not in Titian’s. But the most convincing evidence to those who know the master lies in the composition, which forms an almost equilateral triangle, revealing Giorgione’s supreme sense of beauty in line. The splendid curves made by the drapery, the pose of the Child, so as to obtain the same unbroken sweep of line, reveal the painter of the Dresden Venus. The painting of the Child’s hand over the Madonna’s is precisely as in the Madrid picture, where, moreover, the pose of the Child is singularly alike. The folds of drapery on the sleeve recur in the same picture, the landscape with the small figure seated beneath the tree is such as can be found in any Giorgione background. The oval of the face and the delicacy of the features are thoroughly characteristic, as is the spirit of calm reverie and tender simplicity which Giorgione has breathed into his figures.”

Whether by Titian, or by Giorgione, or by both, the painting is a gem. If by Giorgione, it would be even more valuable, as this master is so rare.

The painting, oil on panel (18 × 22 inches), came from the Benson Collection and was formerly at Burghley House, Stamford, Northamptonshire, having been acquired in Italy between 1690 and 1700 by the Earl of Exeter.

Tiziano Vecellio was born about 1477 at Pieve di Cadore, the son of Gregorio Vecelli, and was taken to Venice at the age of ten and apprenticed to a mosaic-worker. After this he studied in Giovanni Bellini’s bottega, where he had for a fellow-pupil, Giorgione, with whom he was associated in decorating the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Titian visited Padua, Rome, and, in 1516, Ferrara. Commissions of all kinds followed rapidly and Titian became the most famous painter of his time. He lived in splendid style and his long life was filled with magnificent painting and magnificent results. Titian died of the Plague in 1576.

In his long life, crowned with every kind of success, Titian painted with superlative skill every sort of subject. Titian was one of the greatest masters the world has ever known.

“In attempting to picture Titian,” writes Taine, “we imagine a happy man, the happiest and the healthiest of his species, Heaven having bestowed upon him nothing but favors and felicities: the first among his rivals; visited in his house by the Kings of France and Poland; a favorite of the Emperor, of Philip II, of the Doges, of Pope Paul III, of all the Italian princes; created a knight and a count of the Empire; overwhelmed with orders; liberally paid, pensioned, and worthily enjoying his good fortune. He kept house in great state, dressed himself splendidly, and entertained at his table cardinals, lords, the greatest artists and the ablest writers of his day. Beauty, taste, cultivation, and talent play and reflect back upon him, as if from a mirror the brightness of his own genius. His brother, his son, Orazio, his two cousins, Cesare and Fabrizio, and his relative, Marco di Tiziano, were all excellent painters. His daughter, Lavinia, dressed as Flora, with a basket of fruit on her head, supplied him with a model of fresh complexion and ample form. His talent flows on like a great river in its bed, nothing disturbs its course, and its own increase is sufficient. Like Leonardo and Michelangelo, Titian sees nothing outside of his art.”

CATERINA CORNARO, QUEEN OF CYPRUS.

Proud and handsome this famous Queen and beauty looks down upon us from the centuries. She is wearing a dress of gold and green striped velvet with a pink camelia at her neck and one of those fashionable, tall, sugar-loaf head-dresses—called in France the hennin—with jewelled band around the rim and a floating veil. Very beautifully are her pearls painted; and, fastened by a chain to a bracelet on her left wrist, is a pet chameleon.

This portrait, oils on canvas (43 × 38 inches), came from the Ricardi Palace, Florence, and from the Collection of R. S. Holford, Esq., Dorchester House.

Caterina Cornaro, “La Reine de Chypre,” famous in song and story, was the daughter of Marco Cornaro, a noble Venetian and descendant of the Doge of the same name, and Florence, daughter of Niccolò Crispo, Duca dell’ Archipelago. Caterina was born in Venice in 1454, educated at the Convent of San Benedetto in Padua, and reared in all the wealth and elegance of the time. At an early age she was married to the King of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Armenia (Jacques de Lusignan), who chose her from sixty-two of the most beautiful women of Venice. The Senate, having adopted Caterina Cornaro as a daughter of the Republic, gave her a dowry of a hundred thousand golden ducats and agreed to defend the Kingdom of Cyprus against all enemies.

The wedding took place by proxy in Venice in 1472 and was celebrated with great magnificence. The Doge, himself, Cristoforo Moro, called for the bride at her palace in the Bucentaur and accompanied her to the Venetian ship in which she embarked with a regal suite for her new home. After experiencing several accidents at sea, the beautiful Venetian lady arrived in Cyprus, where her rare beauty and charming manners captivated the entire population. Within two years her husband died and Caterina then reigned over Cyprus for fourteen years, subject, however, to the strict surveillance of Venice. At last, wearied by restrictions and intrigues, the Queen of Cyprus in 1489 returned to Venice with her beloved brother, Giorgio Cornaro, and made a solemn transfer of all her claims in Cyprus to the Doge.

Caterina then went to Frattalonga, situated at the foot of the Asolani mountains, to meet the Emperor Maximilian, who was on his way home from Milan to Vienna; and the place pleased her so much that she obtained from the Doge, Agostino Barbarigo, the investiture of Asolo and its district. A few months later—in October 1489—Caterina returned to Asolo with a suite of four thousand persons and established a Court in the Castle, where she lived for twenty-one years, protected by troops granted to her by the Republic of Venice. In this beautiful residence Caterina was said to have held three Courts—that of the Muses; that of Love; and that of her own, which was of great magnificence. The leading spirit there was the celebrated poet, Pietro Bembo, (in later years Cardinal Bembo), who wrote his famous dialogues of love, Gli Asolani, here in 1490, for the superb marriage festivities of one of Caterina’s maids-of-honor. Every illustrious personage of the period visited the Court at Asolo.

During the wars occasioned by the League of Cambrai (1508), Caterina returned for safety to Venice and died there in 1510, in the palace of her brother, Giorgio, who was then procurator of St. Mark’s.

Titian painted several other portraits of Caterina Cornaro, of which the one in the Uffizi is the most famous, representing the Queen of Cyprus with her golden crown studded with large pearls and an over-dress or coat of rich green brocade.

GIORGIO CORNARO WITH FALCON.

We have here a famous Venetian statesman and general of the Sixteenth Century, beloved brother of Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus (see page 143), representing him probably in the habit he liked best of all—that of a sportsman with his pet falcon. Here he stands, three quarters to the right, in a slate-colored hunting coat with brown fur collar and with a black belt at the waist from which hangs a sword, bound with a crimson sash. His curly hair and beard are chestnut color and his eyes are very bright. His head is raised and he looks intently at his falcon perched upon his left gloved hand, with hood, bill and jacket attached, and with his right hand grasps the bird’s breast.

From the left hand corner the head of a white, liver-spotted hound looks up. The background is dark. The painting, an oil on canvas (43 × 38 inches) was formerly in the Collections of the Carignan branch of the Royal House of Piedmont; Louis François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti; the Earl of Carlisle, Castle Howard, Yorkshire, England; and Dr. Edward Simon, Berlin. Crowe and Cavalcaselle in their Life and Times of Titian (London, 1881) say of this work: “Titian never produced a finer picture than which now adorns the gallery of Castle Howard. This beautiful work is modelled with all the richness of tone and smoothness of surface which distinguishes polished flesh. The attitude is natural, the complexion warm and embrowned by the sun; and every part is blended with the utmost finish without producing want of flexibility.”

Giorgio Cornaro succeeded his father, Marco Cornaro in 1479, he being about twenty-five. Italian historians are fond of attributing the Victory of Cadore to Giorgio Cornaro, who lived until 1527, having played an important part all his life in Venetian politics.

MAXIMILIAN SFORZA, DUKE OF MILAN.

This portrait, oil on panel (30⅞ × 23¼ inches), was formerly in the Palazzo Sforza and later hung in the Casa Perego, Milan, until the entire Casa Perego Collection was bought in the early Nineteenth Century by Senator Crespi of Rome, in whose gallery it remained until the Crespi Collection was sold. It is doubly interesting as a work of art and as the representation of an important character in Italian history. Bernhard Berenson calls it “one of the most manly portraits and one of the most beautiful paintings of the Italian Renaissance.”

The half-length figure is seen almost full front, but the head is turned slightly to the left. All the Italian Renaissance seems to be expressed in this proud, distinguished person and in his rich dress, which consists of a coat of green velvet trimmed with bands of gold, a finely embroidered white shirt, black waistcoat with horizontal gold stripes and a rich fur collar, which he clasps with his right hand on the index finger of which is a handsome ring. His dark hair falls to the shoulders and is surmounted by a black velvet cap, on the side of which is a gold and enamelled medal showing an allegorical female figure with the date 1512, of the kind that all the fashionable gentlemen were wearing at that period. A red curtain falls behind the figure and on the wall hangs a picture in which are introduced figures from Dürer’s famous woodcut, The Knight and the Lansquenet. In front of the sitter is a narrow ledge, or balustrade, with a card in the centre, which originally carried the signature of Bartolommeo Veneto.

Maximilian Sforza was the son of Ludovico Sforza, “Il Moro,” Duke of Milan, the most illustrious prince of Italy, and Beatrice d’Este, one of the most fascinating and brilliant women of the Italian Renaissance. Maximilian was born on January 25, 1493, in the Castello of Milan, and was named Ercole out of compliment to his grandfather, Duke Ercole of Ferrara. He was brought up in the most brilliant of Courts and his education and training were of the very best. His mother was devoted to him and constantly mentions him in her letters. Ercole appears in the great altar-piece attributed to Zenale, now in the Brera, kneeling by the side of his father. The portrait of this little child must be a good one, for we see the same face grown older in the Veneto portrait before us. On the altar-piece, just mentioned, Ercole’s younger brother kneels by the side of Beatrice d’Este. It was during a visit of the Emperor Maximilian to Ludovico and his wife in 1496 that Ercole received his new name. The Emperor, again charmed by Beatrice, took great interest in her two sons and requested that the elder should be called Maximilian.

But the brilliant days passed and sorrows came. The beautiful, gifted mother died in January, 1497, and the French invaded Milan. Ludovico determined to seek safety in flight and sent his two sons to Germany under the care of his brother, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, Cardinal Sanseverino, and their kinswoman, Camilla Sforza. “A truly piteous and heart-breaking sight it was,” wrote an eye-witness, “to see these poor children embrace their beloved father, whose face was wet with their tears.” Twenty mules laden with baggage and a large chariot drawn by eight horses and containing Ludovico’s precious jewels and 240,000 gold ducats followed in the train of the young princes. These young gentlemen never saw their father again, for “Il Moro” was captured, taken to Paris, and imprisoned in the castle of Loches, where he died in 1508.

An Italian writer, Marino Sanuto, exclaimed on the terrible fate of Ludovico: “Only think, reader, what grief and shame so great and glorious a lord, who had been held to be the wisest of monarchs and ablest of rulers, must have felt at losing so splendid a state in these few days, without a single stroke of the sword. Let those who are in high places take warning, considering the miserable fall of this lord, who was held by many to be the greatest prince in the world, and let them remember that when Fortune sets you on the top of her wheel, she may at any moment bring you to the ground.”

The rest of the story is well told in Mrs. Cartwright’s Beatrice d’Este (London, 1889):

“Meanwhile Beatrice’s sons grew up at Innsbrück, under the care of their cousin, the Empress Bianca. It was a melancholy life for these young princes, born in the purple and reared in all the luxury and culture of Milan. And when their cousin, Bianca, died in 1510, they lost their best friend. But a sudden and unexpected turn of the tide brought them once more to the front. That warlike pontiff, Julius II, who, as Cardinal della Rovere, had been one of the chief instruments in bringing the French into Italy, entered into a league with Maximilian to expel them and reinstate the son of the hated Moro on the throne of Milan. They succeeded so well that in 1512, four years after Ludovico’s death at Loches, young Maximilian Sforza entered Milan in triumph amidst the enthusiastic applause of the people. Once more he rode up to the gates of the Castello, where he was born, and took up his abode there as reigning duke. But his rule over Lombardy was short. A handsome, gentle youth, without either his father’s talents or his mother’s high spirit, Maximilian was destined to become a passive tool in the hands of stronger and more powerful men. His weakness and incapacity soon became apparent, and when, three years later, the new French King, Francis I, invaded the Milanese and defeated the Italian army at Marignano, the young duke signed an act of abdication and consented to spend the rest of his life in France. There he lived in honorable captivity, content with a pension allowed him by King Francis and with the promise of a Cardinal’s hat held out to him by the Pope, until he died in May, 1530.”

Bartolommeo Veneto (or Bartolommeo Veneziano), born in 1480, was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, whose influence is apparent in Veneto’s early pictures. In 1506–1508 Veneto was painting for Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara and after that he was engaged at the Court of Milan, where he painted this portrait of Maximilian Sforza. The picture bears the date 1512, which was the year the young Duke returned to Milan.

Bartolommeo Veneto was famous for his portraits. He lived for sometime in Lombardy and, like all the painters of the time and place, fell under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci. As the last trace of him appears on a portrait in the Uffizi, dated 1555, it is supposed that Veneto died in that year.

A SCENE ALONG THE ADRIATIC COAST.

Guardi, a pupil of Canaletto, devoted himself to the study of his native city, Venice, where he was born in 1712 and where he painted steadily until his death in 1793. Guardi ranks with Canaletto and Turner as one of the three greatest painters of the “Dream City” as Charles Dickens called Venice. In Guardi’s long list of pictures we have a perfect history in paint of the “Queen of the Adriatic” during the Eighteenth Century. There are innumerable views of the Grand Canal; of both the exterior and the interior of San Marco; of San Giorgio, the Salute, San Zaccaria, and other churches; of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (the German banking-house); the Doges Palace; the Piazza and the Piazzetta; scenes on the outlying islands; views on the Lagoons; and pictures of processions of the Doges and of festivals of the church. The picture presented here shows a scene outside of Venice, but not far away; and it is a beautiful and characteristic work of Guardi, both as to composition and color. The painting came from the Collection of the Baron Maurice de Rothschild of Paris to its present owner, Mrs. Charles B. Alexander of New York.