n in its most vigorous manifestations, well under
control. The design suggests that in some shape or other the painter was
acquainted with Raphael's _Madonna di Foligno_; but it is dramatic and
real where the Urbinate's masterpiece was lofty and symbolical. Still
Titian's St. Francis, rapt in contemplation, is sublime in steadfastness
and intensity of faith; the kneeling donor is as pathetic in the
humility of his adoration as any similar figure in a Quattrocento
altar-piece, yet his expressive head is touched with the hand of a
master of the full Renaissance. An improved version of the upper portion
of the Ancona picture, showing the Madonna and Child with angels in the
clouds, appears a little later on in the S. Niccolo altar-piece.

[Illustration: _St. Sebastian. Wing of altar-piece in the Church of SS.
Nazzaro e Celso, Brescia. From a Photograph by Alinari_.]

Coming to the important altar-piece completed in 1522 for the Papal
Legate, Averoldo, and originally placed on the high altar in the Church
of SS. Nazzaro e Celso at Brescia, we find a marked change of style and
sentiment. The _St. Sebastian_ presently to be referred to, constituting
the right wing of the altar-piece, was completed before the rest,[43]
and excited so great an interest in Venice that Tebaldi, the agent of
Duke Alfonso, made an attempt to defeat the Legate and secure the
much-talked-of piece for his master. Titian succumbed to an offer of
sixty ducats in ready money, thus revealing neither for the first nor
the last time the least attractive yet not the least significant side of
his character. But at the last moment Alfonso, fearing to make an enemy
of the Legate, drew back and left to Titian the discredit without the
profit of the transaction. The central compartment of the Brescia
altar-piece presents _The Resurrection_, the upper panels on the left
and right show together the _Annunciation_, the lower left panel depicts
the patron saints, Nazarus and Celsus, with the kneeling donor,
Averoldo; the lower right panel has the famous _St. Sebastian_[44] in
the foreground, and in the landscape the Angel ministering to St. Roch.
The _St. Sebastian_ is neither more nor less than the magnificent
academic study of a nude athlete bound to a tree in such fashion as to
bring into violent play at one and the same moment every muscle in his
splendidly developed body. There is neither in the figure nor in the
beautiful face framed in long falling hair any pr