a palm branch such as we associate with saints who have
endured martyrdom. Strangely sombre and melancholy in its very reserve
is this sensitive face, and the tone of the landscape echoes the
pathetic note of disquiet. The canvas bears the signature "Titianus
Pictor et Aeques (sic) Caesaris." There group very well with this
Dresden picture, though the writer will not venture to assert positively
that they belong to exactly the same period, the _St. Dominic_ of the
Borghese Gallery and the _Knight of Malta_ of the Prado Gallery. In all
three--in the two secular portraits as in the sacred piece which is also
a portrait--the expression given, and doubtless intended, is that of a
man who has withdrawn himself in his time of fullest physical vigour
from the pomps and vanities of the world, and sadly concentrates his
thoughts on matters of higher import.

On the 1st of December 1561 Titian wrote to the king to announce the
despatch of a _Magdalen_, which had already been mentioned more than
once in the correspondence. According to Vasari and subsequent
authorities, Silvio Badoer, a Venetian patrician, saw the masterpiece on
the painter's easel, and took it away for a hundred scudi, leaving the
master to paint another for Philip. This last has disappeared, while the
canvas which remained in Venice cannot be identified with any
certainty. The finest extant example of this type of _Magdalen_ is
undoubtedly that which from Titian's ne'er-do-well son, Pompinio, passed
to the Barbarigo family, and ultimately, with the group of Titians
forming part of the Barbarigo collection, found its way into the
Imperial Gallery of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. This answers in
every respect to Vasari's eloquent description of the _magna peccatrix_,
lovely still in her penitence. It is an embodiment of the favourite
subject, infinitely finer and more moving than the much earlier
_Magdalen_ of the Pitti, in which the artist's sole preoccupation has
been the alluring portraiture of exuberant feminine charms. This later
_Magdalen_, as Vasari says, "ancorche che sia bellissima, non muove a
lascivia, ma a commiserazione," and the contrary might, without
exaggeration, be said of the Pitti picture.[52] Another of the Barbarigo
heirlooms which so passed into the Hermitage is the ever-popular _Venus
with the Mirror_, the original of many repetitions and variations. Here,
while one winged love holds the mirror, the other proffers a crown of
flowers, no