ls. On that vat Gian Bellini wrote these words:

JOANNES BELLINUS VENETUS, P. 1514.

That work he was not able to finish completely, because he was old,
and Tiziano, as the most excellent of all the others, was sent for to
the end that he might finish it; wherefore, being desirous to acquire
excellence and to make himself known, he executed with much diligence
two scenes that were wanting in that little chamber. In the first is a
river of red wine, about which are singers and musicians, both men
and women, as it were drunk, and a naked woman who is sleeping, so
beautiful that she might be alive, together with other figures; and on
this picture Tiziano wrote his name. In the other, which is next to it
and seen first on entering, he painted many little boys and Loves in
various attitudes, which much pleased that lord, as also did the other
picture; but most beautiful of all is one of those boys who is making
water into a river and is reflected in the water, while the others are
around a pedestal that has the form of an altar, upon which is a
statue of Venus with a sea-conch in the right hand, and Grace and
Beauty about her, which are very lovely figures and executed with
incredible diligence. On the door of a press, likewise, Tiziano
painted an image of Christ from the waist upwards, marvellous, nay,
stupendous, to whom a base Hebrew is showing the coin of Caesar; which
image, and also other pictures in that little chamber, our best
craftsmen declare to be the finest and best executed that Tiziano has
ever done, and indeed they are most rare. Wherefore he well deserved
to be most liberally recompensed and rewarded by that lord, whom he
portrayed excellently well with one arm resting on a great piece of
artillery; and he also made a portrait of Signora Laura, who
afterwards became the wife of the Duke, which is a stupendous work.
And, in truth, gifts have great potency with those who labour for the
love of art, when they are uplifted by the liberality of Princes. At
that time Tiziano formed a friendship with the divine Messer Lodovico
Ariosto, and was recognized by him as a most excellent painter and
celebrated in his Orlando Furioso:

... E Tizian che onora
Non men Cador, che quei Vinezia e Urbino.

[Illustration: TIZIANO: SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE

(_Rome: Borghese Gallery, 147. Canvas_)]

Having then returned to Venice, Tiziano painted on a canvas in oils,
for the father-in-law of Giovanni da C