Venice for a short time in 1500, and it would be perfectly natural to
find the young Venetian, then in his twenty-fourth year, visiting the
great Florentine, long a master of repute, and from him, or from
"certain works of his," taking hints for his own practice.[7]

The second event of moment to which allusion may here be made was the
great conflagration in the year 1504, when the Exchange of the German
Merchants was burnt. This building, known as the Fondaco de' Tedeschi,
occupying one of the finest sites on the Grand Canal, was rebuilt by
order of the Signoria, and Giorgione received the commission to decorate
the façade with frescoes. The work was completed by 1508, and became the
most celebrated of all the artist's creations. The Fondaco still stands
to-day, but, alas! a crimson stain high up on the wall is all that
remains to us of these great frescoes, which were already in decay when
Vasari visited Venice in 1541.

Other work of the kind--all long since perished--Giorgione undertook
with success. The Soranzo Palace, the Palace of Andrea Loredano, the
Casa Flangini, and elsewhere, were frescoed with various devices, or
ornamented with monochrome friezes.

We know nothing of Giorgione's home life; he does not appear to have
married, or to have left descendants. Vasari speaks of "his many friends
whom he delighted by his admirable performance in music," and his death
caused "extreme grief to his many friends to whom he was endeared by his
excellent qualities." He enjoyed prosperity and good health, and was
called Giorgione "as well from the character of his person as for the
exaltation of his mind."[8]

He died of plague in the early winter of 1510, and was probably buried