the field and his wisdom in the council of Cadore, but not, it may be
assumed, possessed of wealth or, in a poor mountain district like
Cadore, endowed with the means of obtaining it. The other offspring of
the marriage with Lucia were Francesco,--supposed, though without
substantial proof, to have been older than his brother,--Caterina, and
Orsa. At the age of nine, according to Dolce in the _Dialogo della
Pittura_, or of ten, according to Tizianello's _Anonimo_, Titian was
taken from Cadore to Venice, there to enter upon the serious study of
painting. Whether he had previously received some slight tuition in the
rudiments of the art, or had only shown a natural inclination to become
a painter, cannot be ascertained with any precision; nor is the point,
indeed, one of any real importance. What is much more vital in our study
of the master's life-work is to ascertain how far the scenery of his
native Cadore left a permanent impress on his landscape art, and in what
way his descent from a family of mountaineers and soldiers, hardy, yet
of a certain birth and breeding, contributed to shape his individuality
in its development to maturity. It has been almost universally assumed
that Titian throughout his career made use of the mountain scenery of
Cadore in the backgrounds to his pictures; and yet, if we except the
great _Battle of Cadore_ itself (now known only in Fontana's print, in a
reduced version of part of the composition to be found at the Uffizi,
and in a drawing of Rubens at the Albertina), this is only true in a
modified sense. Undoubtedly, both in the backgrounds to altar-pieces,
Holy Families, and Sacred Conversations, and in the landscape drawings
of the type so freely copied and adapted by Domenico Campagnola, we find
the jagged, naked peaks of the Dolomites aspiring to the heavens. In the
majority of instances, however, the middle distance and foreground to
these is not the scenery of the higher Alps, with its abrupt contrasts,
its monotonous vesture of fir or pine forests clothing the mountain
sides, and its relatively harsh and cold colouring, but the richer