the house originally belonged; while a
very small and very dark adjoining closet, with a porthole of window
sunk in a slope of massive wall, was pointed out as the room in which
the great painter was born.

"But how do you know that he was born here?" I asked. The hunchback
lifted his wasted hand with a deprecating gesture. "They have always
said so, Signora," he replied. "They have said so for more than four
hundred years."

"They?" I repeated, doubtfully. "The Vecelli, Signora." "I had
understood that the Vecellio family was extinct." "Scusate, Signora,"
said the hunchback. "The last direct descendant of 'Il Tiziano' died not
long ago--a few years before I was born; and the collateral Vecelli are
citizens of Cadore to this day. If the Signora will be pleased to look
for it, she will see the name of Vecellio over a shop on the right-hand
side, as she returns to the Piazza."

I did look for it; and there, sure enough, over a small shop-window I
found it. It gave one an odd sort of shock, as if time were for the
moment annihilated; and I remember how, with something of the same
feeling, I once saw the name of Rubens over a shop-front in the
market-place at Cologne.

I left the house less incredulous than I entered it. Of the identity of
the building there has never been any kind of doubt; and I am inclined
to accept with the house the identity of the room. Titian, it should be
remembered, lived long enough to become, long before he died, the glory
of his family. He became rich; he became noble; his fame filled Italy.
Hence the room in which he was born may well have acquired, half a
century before his death--perhaps even during the lifetime of his
mother--that sort of sacredness which is generally of post-mortem
growth. The legend, handed down from Vecellio to Vecellio in
uninterrupted succession, lays claim, therefore, to a more reliable
pedigree than most traditions of a similar character.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From "Travels in Italy." Translated by A. J. W. Morrison and Charles
Nisbet. Goethe's visit to Italy was made in 1786. He was then only
thirty-seven years of age. The visit had important influence on his
subsequent career. The greatest of his works were still to be written.
It was not until after 1794 that Goethe devoted himself entirely to
literature.

[2] Goethe at this time had published several short plays besides "The
Sorrows of Werthe," "Wilhelm Meister," and a few other works less
important.