s own life but is actually out by several years in
giving his own age. One and the same event--viz. his journey with
Cardinal Passerini to Florence--is given in his own autobiography to the
year 1524, in the "Life of Salviati," to the year 1523, and in the "Life
of Michael Angelo" to 1525. When he speaks of himself in the same
passage in the "Life of Salviati" as the "putto, che allora non aveva
piu di nove anni," he is making a mistake of at least three years in his
own age. And not less delightful is it to read in the "Life of Giovanni
da Udine": "Giorgio Vasari, giovinetto di diciotto anni, quando serviva
il duca Alessandro de' Medici suo primo signore l'anno 1535." We are
obviously not dealing with Messer Giorgio's strongest point, for, as a
matter of fact, he was at that time twenty-four years of age! The same
false statement of age is found again in his own biography (vii. p. 656,
with the variation, "poco piu di diciotto anni").

But I think these instances suffice to prove how little one dare build
on such assertions of Vasari. Who dare say if Titian was really only
seventy-six in 1566 when the Aretine visited him?

And now a few remarks on the other points raised by Mr. Cook. As a
fact, it is an astonishing thing that we have no documentary evidence
about Titian before 1511; but does he not share this fate with very many
of his great countrymen, with Bellini, Giorgione, Sebastiano, and
others? An unfriendly chance has left us entirely in the dark as to the
early years of nearly all the great Venetian painters. That Duerer makes
no mention of Titian's name in his letters gives no cause for surprise,
for even the most celebrated of the younger artists, Giorgione, is not
alluded to, and of all those with Bellini, whose fame outshone even then
that of all others, only Barbari is mentioned. That Titian's name does
not occur in the documents about the Fondaco frescoes may be due to the
fact that Giorgione alone was commissioned to undertake the frescoes for
the magistrates, and that the latter painter in his turn brought his
associate Titian into the work.

Mr. Cook says that Titian still signed himself in 1511 "Dipintore"
instead of "Maestro." I am not aware whether in this respect definite
regulations or customs were usual in Venice.[166] At any rate, the
painter is still described in official documents as late as 1518 as "ser
Tizian depentor" (Lorenzi, "Monumenti," No. 366), when, even according
to Mr. Cook's th