Pope Alessandro III., who plants his foot on the Emperor’s neck.[1] This was now finished by Titian, who altered many parts of it, introducing portraits of his friends and others. For this he received from the Senate an ofiice in the Exchange of the Germans called the Senseria, which brought him in three hundred crowns yearly, and which those Signori usually give to the most eminent painter of their city, on condition that from time to time he shall take the portrait of their Doge or Prince when such shall he created, at the price of eight crowns, which the Doge himself pays, the portrait being then preserved in the Palace of San Marco, as a memorial of that Doge.
In the year 1514, the Duke Alfonso of Ferrara had a small apartment decorated in certain of its compartments by the Ferrarese painter Dosso; the Stories were of Eneas, Mars, and Yenus; and in a Grotto was Vulcan with two Cyclops working at the forge. The Duke then wished to have some pictures by Gian Bellino, who painted on one of the walls a Vat of red wine surrounded by Bacchantes, Satyrs, and other figures male and female, all inebriated, with Silenus entirely nude mounted on his ass, a very beautiful figure; around this group are crowds of figures with grapes and other fruits in their hands, and this work is so carefully coloured that it may be called one of the finest ever executed by Gian Bellino, although there is a certain harshness and stiffness in the draperies, he having imitated a picture by the Fleming, Albert Dürer, which had just then been brought to Venice. It was placed in the Church of San Bartolommeo, an extraordinary work painted in oil, and comprising a crowd of figures. Within the Vat abovementioned Gian Bellino wrote the following words:—
Joannes Bellinus Venetus, p, 1514.
This picture the great age of the master had prevented him from completing; and Titian, as being more eminent than any other artist, was sent for to finish it; wherefore, desirous of progress and anxious to make himself known, he depicted two Stories which were still wanting to that apartment: the first is a River of red wine, beside which are singers and players on instruments half inebriated, females as well as men. There is one nude figure of a sleeping Woman which is very beautiful, and appears living, as indeed
- ↑ This story was left unfinished, not by Bellino, but Giorgione, and the description of it by Vasari is not strictly accurate. See Ridolfi, ut supra.
