Giorgione himself. The one of Titian's own early pictures with which it
appears to the writer to have most in common--not so much in technique,
indeed, as in general style--is the _St. Mark_ of the Salute, and than
this it is very much less Giorgionesque. To praise the _Cristo della
Moneta_ anew after it has been so incomparably well praised seems almost
an impertinence. The soft radiance of the colour so well matches the
tempered majesty, the infinite mansuetude of the conception; the
spirituality, which is of the essence of the august subject, is so
happily expressed, without any sensible diminution of the splendour of
Renaissance art approaching its highest. And yet nothing could well be
simpler than the scheme of colour as compared with the complex harmonies
which Venetian art in a somewhat later phase affected. Frank contrasts
are established between the tender, glowing flesh of the Christ, seen in
all the glory of achieved manhood, and the coarse, brown skin of the son
of the people who appears as the Pharisee; between the bright yet
tempered red of His robe and the deep blue of His mantle. But the golden
glow, which is Titian's own, envelops the contrasting figures and the
contrasting hues in its harmonising atmosphere, and gives unity to the
whole.[28]

[Illustration: _The "Cristo della Moneta." Dresden Gallery. From a
Photograph by Hanfstängl._]

A small group of early portraits--all of them somewhat difficult to
place--call for attention before we proceed. Probably the earliest
portrait among those as yet recognised as from the hand of our
painter--leaving out of the question the _Baffo_ and the
portrait-figures in the great _St. Mark_ of the Salute--is the
magnificent _Ariosto_ in the Earl of Darnley's Collection at Cobham
Hall.[29] There is very considerable doubt, to say the least, as to