WHEN WAS TITIAN BORN?
Reply to Dr. Gronau. Reprinted from "Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft," vol. xxv., parts 1 and 2
I must thank Dr. Georg Gronau for his very fair reply, published in these pages[[168]] (to my article in the Nineteenth Century on the subject of Titian's age[[169]]). He has also most kindly pointed out two pieces of contemporary evidence which had escaped my notice, and although neither of these passages is conclusive proof one way or the other, they deserve to be reckoned with in arriving at a decision.
Dr. Gronau formulates the evidence shortly thus:
| Vasari in 1566 or 1567 |
says | Titian is over 76 |
| The Spanish Consul in 1567 | " | " " 85 |
| Titian himself in 1571 | " | he is " 95 |
and he adds that this new piece of evidence—viz. the letter of the Spanish Consul to King Philip—instead of helping us, only makes the confusion worse.
What then are we to think when yet another—a fourth—contemporary statement turns up, differing from any of the three just quoted? Yet such a letter exists, and I am happy in my turn to point out this fresh piece of evidence, in the hope that instead of making the confusion worse, it will help us to arrive at some decision.
On October the 15th, 1564, Garcia Hernandez, Envoy in Venice from King Philip II., writes to the King his master that Titian begged that His Majesty would condescend to order that he should be paid what was due to him from the court and from Milan.... For the rest the painter was in fine condition, and quite capable of work, and this was the time, if ever, to get "other things" from him, as according to some people who knew him, Titian was about ninety years old, though he did not show it, and for money everything was to be had of him.[[170]]
In 1564 then the Spanish Envoy writes that Titian was said to be about ninety. Let us then enlarge Dr. Gronau's table by this additional statement, and further complete it by including the earliest piece of evidence, the statement of Dolce in 1557 that Titian was scarcely twenty when he worked at the Fondaco de' Tedeschi frescoes (1507-8). The year of Titian's birth thus works out:
| Writing in | 1557 | Dolce | makes out Titian was born about | 1489 |
| " | 1566-7 | Vasari | " | 1489 |
| " | 1564 | Spanish Envoy | " | 1474 |
| " | 1567 | Spanish Consul | " | 1482 |
| " | 1571 | Titian himself | " | 1476 |
Now it is curious to notice that the last three statements are all made in letters to King Philip, either by Titian himself, or at his request by the Spanish agents.
It is curious to notice these statements as to Titian's great age occur in begging letters.[[171]]
It is curious to notice they are mutually contradictory.
What are we to conclude?
Surely that the Spanish Envoy, the Spanish Consul, and Titian himself, out of their own mouths stand convicted of inconsistency of statement, and further that they betray an identical motive underlying each representation—viz. an appeal ad misericordiam.
Before, however, contrasting the value of the evidence as found in these Spanish letters with the evidence as found in Dolce and Vasari, let us note two points in these letters.
Garcia Hernandez, the Spanish Envoy, writes: "According to some people who knew him, Titian was about ninety years old, though he did not show it." Now, if Titian was really about ninety in the year 1564, he will have lived to the age of one hundred and two, a feat of longevity of which no one has ever accused him! Apart, therefore, from the healthy scepticism which Hernandez betrays in this letter, we may certainly conclude that "some people who knew him" were exaggerating Titian's age.
Secondly, Titian's letter of 1571 says he is ninety-five years old. Titian's similar letter of 1576, the year of his death, omits to say he is one hundred. Surely a strange omission, considering that he refers to his old age three times in this one letter.[[172]] Does not the second letter correct the inexactness of the first? and so Titian's statement goes for nothing?
The collective evidence, then, of these Spanish letters amounts to this, that, in the words of the Envoy, "for money everything was to be had of Titian," and accordingly any statement as to his great age when thus made for effect must be treated with the greatest suspicion.
But is the evidence of Dolce and Vasari any more trustworthy? Dr. Gronau is at pains to show that both these writers often made mistakes in their dates, a fact which no one can dispute. Their very incorrectness is the more reason however for trusting them in this instance, for they happen to agree about the date of Titian's birth; and, although neither of them expressly gives the year 1489, they indicate separate and independent events in his life, the one, Dolce, at the beginning, the other, Vasari, at the end, which when looked into give the same result.
Moreover, be Dolce ever so anxious to cry up his hero Titian, and make him out to have been precocious, and be Vasari ever so inexact in his chronology, we must remember that, when both of them wrote, the presumption of unusual longevity had not arisen, and that their evidence therefore is less likely to be prejudiced in this respect than the evidence given in obituary notices, such as occurs in Borghini's Riposo of 1584, and in the later writers like Tizianello and Ridolfi.
That Borghini therefore says Titian was ninety-eight or ninety-nine when he died, and that Tizianello and Ridolfi, thirty-eight and sixty-four years later respectively, put him down at ninety-nine, is by no means proof that such was the case. It would seem that there had been some speculation before and after Titian's death as to his exact age; that no one quite knew for certain; and that Titian with the credulousness of old age had come to regard himself as well-nigh a centenarian. Be this as it may, I still hold that the evidence of Dolce and Vasari that Titian's birth occurred in 1489 is more trustworthy than either the evidence found in the three Spanish letters, or the evidence as given in the obituary notices of Borghini and others.
One word more. If Titian was born in 1489, instead of 1476-7, it does make a great difference in the story of his own career; and, what is more, the history of Venetian art in the early sixteenth century, as it centres round Giorgione, Palma, and Titian, will have to be carefully reconsidered.
HERBERT COOK.
The picture now hangs in the Academia at Venice.
E.g. the "Sacred and Profane Love" (so-called) in the Borghese Gallery; the "S. Mark" of the Salute; the "Concert" in the Pitti; the "Tribute Money" at Dresden; the "Madonna of the Cherries" at Vienna, etc., which one or other of his biographers assign to the years 1500-1510.
The Life and Times of Titian, 2 vols., 1881.
The Earlier and Later Work of Titian. Portfolio, October 1897 and July 1898.
Tizian. Berlin, 1901.
La Vie et l'Oeuvre de Titien: Paris, 1886.
See Crowe and Cavalcaselle: Titian, i. 85. The fact that Titian's name does not occur in these records is curious and suggestive.
Ed. Sansoni, p. 459. The translation is that of Blashfield and Hopkins. Bell, 1897.
Ibid. p. 425.
Ibid. p. 428.
The translation is that of Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Titian, ii. 391. The original is given by them at p. 538.
Quoted from Crowe and Cavalcaselle.
Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Titian, ii. 409.
There is a collection of these in a volume in the British Museum.
Before the discovery of the letter to Philip, Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle were quite prepared to admit that Titian was born "after 1480" (vide N. Italian Painting, ii. 119, 120). Unfortunately, they took the evidence of the letter as final, but finding themselves chronologically in difficulties, they shrewdly remark in their Titian, i. 38, note: "The writers of these lines thought, and still think, Titian younger than either Giorgione or Palma. They were, however, inclined to transpose Titian's birthday to a later date than 1477, rather than put back those of Palma and Giorgione to an earlier period, and in this they made a mistake." Perhaps they were not so far wrong after all!
For this most amusing letter see Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Titian, i. p. 153.
The evidence afforded by Titian's own portraits of himself (at Berlin and in the Uffizi) is inconclusive, as we do not know the exact years they were painted. The portrait at Madrid, painted 1562, might represent a man of seventy-three or eighty-six, it is hard to say which. But there is a woodcut of 1550 (vide Gronau, p. 164) which surely shows Titian at the age of sixty-one rather than seventy-four; and, finally, Paul Veronese's great "Marriage at Cana" (in the Louvre), which was painted between June 1562 and September 1563, distinctly points to Titian being then a man of seventy-four and not eighty-seven. He is represented, as is well known, seated in the group of musicians in the centre, and playing the contrabasso.
Jahrbuch der Sammlungen des A.H. Kaiserhauses, vii. p. 221 ff 1888.
Dr. Ludwig had the kindness to write to me on this subject: "Among the thousands of signatures of painters which I have seen I have never come across the signature Maestro. Of course, someone else can describe a painter as Master; he himself always subscribes himself pittor, pictor, or depentor."
Dr. Gronau further points out (in a letter recently sent to the writer) that Titian, writing to the emperor in 1545, says: "I should have liked to take them (i.e. the paintings) to your Majesty in person, but that my age and the length of the journey forbade such a course" (C. and C. ii. 103). Writing also in 1548 to Granvella he refers to his "vechia vita." Would not such expressions (asks Dr. Gronau) be more applicable to a man of sixty-eight and seventy-one respectively than to one of only fifty-six and fifty-nine?
XXIV. Band. 6 Heft, p. 457.
January 1902, pp. 123-130.
Quoted from Crowe and Cavalcaselle. II. 344. The Spanish original is given at p. 535.
I have quoted Titian's letter in full in the Nineteenth Century. That of the Spanish Consul is given in the Jahrbuch der Sammlungen des A.H. Kaiserhauses, vii. p. 221, from which I extract the passage: "El dicho Ticiano besa pies y manos de V.M., y suplica umilmente a V.M. mande le sea pagado lo que le ha corrido de las pensiones de que V.M. le tiene echo merced en Milan y en esa corte, y la trata de Napoles, y con los 85 años de su edad servira a V.M. hasta la muerte."
I have quoted this letter also in full in the Nineteenth Century. I am indebted to M. Salomon Reinach for making this point (Chronique des Arts, Feb. 15, 1902, p. 53, where he expresses himself a convert to my views).