extracted.
There are several slight inaccuracies in his work Titian was
born, not in 1480, but in 1477, and died in 1576. He was in
coloring the greatest artist who ever lived.]

1477-1576

[Illustration: Titian.]

Titian was born in the year 1480, at Cadore, a small place distant
about five miles from the foot of the Alps; he belonged to the family
of the Vecelli, which is among the most noble of those parts. Giving
early proof of much intelligence, he was sent at the age of ten to an
uncle in Venice, an honorable citizen, who, seeing the boy to be much
inclined to painting, placed him with the excellent painter, Gian
Bellino, then very famous. Under his care, the youth soon proved
himself to be endowed by nature with all the gifts of judgment and
genius required for the art of painting. Now, Gian Bellino and the
other masters of that country, not having the habit of studying the
antique, were accustomed to copy only what they saw before them, and
that in a dry, hard, labored manner, which Titian also acquired; but
about the year 1507, Giorgione da Castel Franco, not being satisfied
with that mode of proceeding, began to give to his works an unwonted
softness and relief, painting them in a very beautiful manner; yet he
by no means neglected to draw from the life, or to copy nature with
his colors as closely as he could; and in doing the latter he shaded
with colder or warmer tints as the living object might demand, but
without first making a drawing; since he held that, to paint with the
colors only, without any drawing on paper, was the best mode of
proceeding, and most perfectly in accord with the true principles of
design.

Having seen the manner of Giorgione, Titian early resolved to abandon
that of Gian Bellino, although well grounded therein. He now,
therefore, devoted himself to this purpose, and in a short time so
closely imitated Giorgione that his pictures were sometimes taken for
those of that master, as will be related below. Increasing in age,
judgment, and facility of hand, our young artist executed numerous
works in fresco which cannot here be named individually, having been
dispersed in various places; let it suffice to say, that they were
such as to cause experienced men to anticipate the excellence to which
he afterward attained. At the time when Titian began to adopt the
manner of Giorgione, being then not more than eighteen, he took the
portrait of a gentleman of