sent as a present to
Duke Cosimo de' Medici, to whom he sent also the head of Signor
Giovanni de' Medici, the father of the said Lord Duke. That head was
copied from a cast taken from the face of that lord when he died at
Mantua, which was in the possession of Aretino; and both these
portraits are in the guardaroba of the same Lord Duke, among many
other most noble pictures.

The same year, Vasari having been thirteen months in Venice to
execute, as has been related, a ceiling for Messer Giovanni Cornaro,
and some works for the Company of the Calza, Sansovino, who was
directing the fabric of S. Spirito, had commissioned him to make
designs for three large pictures in oils which were to go into the
ceiling, to the end that he might execute them in painting; but,
Vasari having afterwards departed, those three pictures were allotted
to Tiziano, who executed them most beautifully, from his having
contrived with great art to make the figures foreshortened from below
upwards. In one is Abraham sacrificing Isaac, in another David
severing the neck of Goliath, and in the third Abel slain by his
brother Cain. About the same time Tiziano painted a portrait of
himself, in order to leave that memory of himself to his children.

[Illustration: DANAE

(_After the painting by =Tiziano=. Naples: Museo Nazionale_)

_Anderson_]

The year 1546 having come, he went at the invitation of Cardinal
Farnese to Rome, where he found Vasari, who, having returned from
Naples, was executing the Hall of the Cancelleria for the above-named
Cardinal; whereupon, Tiziano having been recommended by that lord to
Vasari, Giorgio kept him company lovingly in taking him about to see
the sights of Rome. And then, after Tiziano had rested for some days,
rooms were given to him in the Belvedere, to the end that he might set
his hand to painting once more the portrait of Pope Paul, of full
length, with one of Farnese and one of Duke Ottavio, which he executed
excellently well and much to the satisfaction of those lords. At their
persuasion he painted, for presenting to the Pope, a picture of Christ
from the waist upwards in the form of an "Ecce Homo," which work,
whether it was that the works of Michelagnolo, Raffaello, Polidoro,
and others had made him lose some force, or for some other reason, did
not appear to the painters, although it was a good picture, to be of
the same excellence as many others by his hand, and particularly his
portraits. Michelagn