r, showed some of the most repellent peculiarities of his
father and his race. He had the supreme distinction of Charles but not
his majesty, more than his haughty reserve, even less than his power of
enlisting sympathy. In this most difficult of tasks--the portrayal that
should be at one and the same time true in its essence, distinguished,
and as sympathetic as might be under the circumstances, of so unlovable
a personage--Titian won a new victory. His _Prince Philip of Austria in
Armour_ at the Prado is one of his most complete and satisfying
achievements, from every point of view. A veritable triumph of art, but
as usual a triumph to which the master himself disdains to call
attention, is the rendering of the damascened armour, the puffed hose,
and the white silk stockings and shoes. The two most important
variations executed by the master, or under his immediate direction, are
the full-lengths of the Pitti Palace and the Naples Museum, in both of
which sumptuous court-dress replaces the gala military costume. They are
practically identical, both in the design and the working out, save that
in the Florence example Philip stands on a grass plot in front of a
colonnade, while in that of Naples the background is featureless. As the
pictures are now seen, that in the Pitti is marked by greater subtlety
in the characterisation of the head, while the Naples canvas appears the
more brilliant as regards the working out of the costume and
accessories.

To the period of Titian's return from the second visit to Augsburg
belongs a very remarkable portrait which of late years there has been
some disinclination to admit as his own work. This is the imposing
full-length portrait which stands forth as the crowning decoration of
the beautiful and well-ordered gallery at Cassel. In the days when it
was sought to obtain _quand meme_ a striking designation for a great
picture, it was christened _Alfonso d'Avalos, Marques del Vasto_.
More recently, with some greater show of probability, it has
been called _Guidobaldo II., Duke of Urbino_. In the _Jahrbuch der
koeniglich-preussischen Kunstsammlungen_,[43] Herr Carl Justi, ever bold
and ingenious in hypothesis, strives, with the support of a mass of
corroborative evidence that cannot be here quoted, to prove that the
splendid personage presented is a Neapolitan nobleman of the highest
rank, Giovan Francesco Acquaviva, Duke of Atri. There is the more reason
to accept his conjecture since i