Editing Titian (section)

===Early years===
[[File:Titian - Portrait of a man with a quilted sleeve.jpg|thumb|left|''[[A Man with a Quilted Sleeve]]'', c. 1509, [[National Gallery]], London]]
The exact time or date of Titian's birth is uncertain. When he was an old man he claimed in a letter to [[Philip II of Spain]], to have been born in 1474, but this seems most unlikely.<ref name="NG">[[Cecil Gould]], The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, National Gallery Catalogues, p. 265, London, 1975, {{ISBN|0-947645-22-5}}</ref> Other writers contemporary to his old age give figures that would equate to birth dates between 1473 and after 1482.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lafrusta.homestead.com/riv_tiziano.html |title=When Was Titian Born? |publisher=Lafrusta.homestead.com |date=4 November 2002 |access-date=30 January 2011}}</ref> Most modern scholars believe a date between 1488 and 1490 is more likely,{{sfn|Hale|2012|pp=5–6}} though his age at death being 99 had been accepted into the 20th century.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Renaissance|last=Durant|first=Will|publisher=Simon and Schuster|year=1953|series=[[The Story of Civilization]]|volume=5|location=New York|pages=667}}</ref>

He was the son of Gregorio Vecellio and his wife Lucia, of whom little is known. Gregorio was superintendent of the castle of Pieve di Cadore and managed local mines for their owners.<ref name="DJ">David Jaffé (ed), Titian, The National Gallery Company/Yale, p. 11, London 2003, {{ISBN|1-85709-903-6}}</ref> Gregorio was also a distinguished councilor and soldier. Many relatives, including Titian's grandfather, were [[Civil law notary|notaries]], and the family was well-established in the area, which was ruled by Venice.

At the age of about ten to twelve Titian and his brother Francesco (who perhaps followed later) were sent to an uncle in Venice to find an apprenticeship with a painter. The minor painter Sebastian Zuccato, whose sons became well-known [[mosaic]]ists, and who may have been a family friend, arranged for the brothers to enter the studio of the elderly [[Gentile Bellini]], from which they later transferred to that of his brother [[Giovanni Bellini]].<ref name="DJ" /> At that time the Bellinis, especially Giovanni, were the leading artists in the city. There Titian found a group of young men about his own age, among them Giovanni Palma da Serinalta, [[Lorenzo Lotto]], [[Sebastiano del Piombo|Sebastiano Luciani]], and Giorgio da Castelfranco, nicknamed [[Giorgione]]. [[Francesco Vecellio]], Titian's older brother, later became a painter of some note in Venice.

A [[fresco]] of [[Hercules]] on the Morosini Palace is said to have been one of Titian's earliest works.{{sfn|Rossetti|1911|p=1023}} Others were the Bellini-esque so-called ''[[The Gypsy Madonna|Gypsy Madonna]]'' in Vienna,<ref>Jaffé No. 1, pp. 74–75 [http://www.wga.hu//art/t/tiziano/01_1510s/06gipsy.jpg image]</ref> and the ''Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth'' (from the convent of Sant'Andrea), now in the [[Gallerie dell'Accademia|Accademia]], Venice.{{sfn|Rossetti|1911|p=1023}}

''[[A Man with a Quilted Sleeve]]'' is an early portrait, painted around 1509 and described by [[Giorgio Vasari]] in 1568. Scholars long believed it depicted [[Ludovico Ariosto]], but now think it is of Gerolamo Barbarigo.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/titian-portrait-of-gerolamo-barbarigo |title=Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo, about 1510, Titian |publisher=[[National Gallery]] |access-date=26 May 2013 }}</ref> [[Rembrandt]] borrowed the composition for his self-portraits.

Titian joined [[Giorgione]] as an assistant, but many contemporary critics already found Titian's work more impressive—for example, in exterior frescoes (now almost totally destroyed) that they collaborated on for the [[Fondaco dei Tedeschi]] (state-warehouse for the German merchants).{{sfn|Rossetti|1911|p=1023}} Their relationship evidently contained a significant element of rivalry. Distinguishing between their work during this period remains a subject of scholarly controversy. A substantial number of attributions have moved from Giorgione to Titian in the 20th century, with little traffic the other way. One of the earliest known Titian works, ''[[Christ Carrying the Cross (Titian)|Christ Carrying the Cross]]'' in the [[Scuola Grande di San Rocco]], depicting the ''[[Ecce homo|Ecce Homo]]'' scene,<ref>{{cite web|author=Olga Mataev |url=http://www.abcgallery.com/T/titian/titian112.html |title=Ecce Homo |publisher=Abcgallery.com |access-date=30 January 2011}}</ref> was long regarded as by Giorgione.<ref>Charles Hope, in Jaffé, pp. 11–14</ref>
[[File:Tizian 029.jpg|thumb|250px|''[[Sacred and Profane Love]],''1514, [[Galleria Borghese]], Rome]]
The two young masters were likewise recognized as the leaders of their new school of ''arte moderna'', which is characterized by paintings made more flexible, freed from symmetry and the remnants of hieratic conventions still found in the works of Giovanni Bellini.{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}

In 1507–1508, Giorgione was commissioned by the state to create frescoes on the re-erected [[Fondaco dei Tedeschi]]. Titian and [[Morto da Feltre]] worked along with him, and some fragments of paintings remain, probably by Giorgione.{{sfn|Rossetti|1911|p=1023}} Some of their work is known, in part, through the engravings of [[Giovanni Battista Fontana (painter)|Fontana]]. After Giorgione's early death in 1510, Titian continued to paint Giorgionesque subjects for some time, though his style developed its own features, including the bold and expressive brushwork so characteristic of his later years.<ref name="Nichols2013">{{cite book |last1=Nichols |first1=Tom |title=Titian: And the End of the Venetian Renaissance |date=2013 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=978-1-78023-227-0 |page=149 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lRBJAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA149}}</ref>
[[File:Amor sacro e amor profano 03.jpg|thumb|Allegory of Sacred Love (detail of ''[[Sacred and Profane Love]]'')]]
Titian's talent in fresco is shown in those he painted in 1511 at [[Padua]] in the [[Carmelites|Carmelite]] church and in the [[Scuola del Santo]], some of which have been preserved, among them the ''Meeting at the Golden Gate'', and three scenes (''Miracoli di sant'Antonio'') from the life of St. [[Anthony of Padua]], ''Murder of a Young Woman by Her Husband'', which depicts The Miracle of the Jealous Husband,<ref>"New findings in Titian's Fresco technique at the Scuola del Santo in Padua", ''[[The Art Bulletin]]'', March 1999, Volume LXXXI Number 1, Author [[Sergio Rossetti Morosini]]</ref> ''A Child Testifying to Its Mother's Innocence'', and ''The Saint Healing the Young Man with a Broken Limb''. ''[[The Resurrected Christ]]'' (Uffizi) also dates to 1511-1512.

In 1512 Titian returned to Venice from Padua; in 1513 he obtained ''La Senseria'' (a profitable privilege much coveted by artists) in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T53MDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA239|title=Venice: Souls' Mother and Child|first=Janet|last=Sethre|date=8 January 2020|publisher=Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency|isbn=9781951530242 |via=Google Books}}</ref> He became superintendent of the government works, especially charged with completing the paintings left unfinished by Giovanni Bellini in the hall of the great council in the [[Doge's Palace, Venice|ducal palace]]. He set up an atelier on the [[Grand Canal (Venice)|Grand Canal]] at S. Samuele, the precise site being now unknown. It was not until 1516, after the death of Giovanni Bellini, that he came into actual enjoyment of his patent. At the same time he entered an exclusive arrangement for painting. The patent yielded him a good annuity of 20 crowns and exempted him from certain taxes. In return, he was bound to paint likenesses of the successive [[Doge of Venice|Doges]] of his time at the fixed price of eight crowns each. The actual number he painted was five.{{sfn|Rossetti|1911|p=1023}}