‘Ci giace il gran Titiano di Vecelli, Emulator di Zeusi e di gl’Apelli.’
This is the inscription on his tomb in the church of the Frati. I read it twice over, but it would not do. Why grieve for the immortals? One is not exactly one’s-self on such occasions, and enthusiasm has its intermittent and stubborn fits; besides, mine is, at present, I suspect, a kind of July shoot, that must take its rise from the stock of former impressions. It spread aloft on the withered branches of the St. Peter Martyr, and shot out more kindly still from seeing three pictures of his, close together, at the house of Signor Manfrini (a Venetian tobacconist), an elaborate Portrait of his friend Ariosto—sharp-featured and tawny-coloured, with a light Morisco look—a bronzed duplicate of the Four Ages at the Marquess of Stafford’s—and his Mistress (which is in the Louvre) introduced into a composition with a gay cavalier and a page. I was glad to see her in company so much fitter for her than her old lover; and besides, the varied grouping gave new life and reality to this charming vision. The two last pictures are doubtfully ascribed to Giorgioni, and this critical equivoque was a source of curiosity and wonder. Giorgioni is the only painter with respect to whom this could be made a question (the distinction between Titian and the other painters of the Venetian school, Tintoret and Paul Veronese, is broad and palpable enough)—and for myself, I incline to attribute the last of the three _chef d’œuvres_ above enumerated to Giorgioni. The difference, it appears to me, may be thus stated. There is more glow and animation in Giorgioni than in Titian. He is of a franker and more genial spirit. Titian has more subtilty and meaning, Giorgioni more life and youthful blood. The feeling in the one is suppressed; in the other, it is overt and transparent. Titian’s are set portraits, with the smallest possible deviation from the straight line: they look as if they were going to be shot, or to shoot somebody. Giorgioni, in what I have seen of his pictures, as the Gaston de Foix, the Music-piece at Florence, &c. is full of inflection and contrast; there is seldom a particle of it in Titian. An appearance of silence, a tendency to still-life, pervades Titian’s portraits; in Giorgioni’s there is a bending attitude, and a flaunting air, as if floating in gondolas or listening to music. For all these reasons (perhaps slenderly put together) I am disposed to think the portrait of the young man in the picture alluded to is by Giorgioni, from the flushed cheek, the good-natured smile, and the careless attitude; and for the same reason, I think it likely that even the portrait of the lady is originally his, and that Titian copied and enlarged the design into the one we see in the Louvre, for the head (supposed to be of himself, in the background) is middle-aged, and Giorgioni died while Titian was yet young. The question of priority in this case is a very nice one; and it would be curious to ascertain the truth by tradition or private documents of any kind.