venerable Giovanni Bellini in connection with the Senseria, or office of
broker, to the merchants of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. We see there how,
on the death of the martial pontiff, Julius the Second, Pietro Bembo
proposed to Titian to take service with the new Medici Pope, Leo the
Tenth (Giovanni de' Medici), and how Navagero dissuaded him from such a
step. Titian, making the most of his own magnanimity, proceeds to
petition the Doge and Signori for the first vacant broker's patent for
life, on the same conditions and with the same charges and exemptions as
are conceded to Giovanni Bellini. The petition is presented on the 31st
of May 1513, and the Council of Ten on that day moves and carries a
resolution accepting Titian's offer with all the conditions attached.
Though he has arrived at the extreme limit of his splendid career, old
Gian Bellino, who has just given new proof of his still transcendent
power in the great altar-piece of S. Giovanni Crisostomo (1513), which
is in some respects the finest of all his works, declines to sit still
under the encroachments of his dangerous competitor, younger than
himself by half a century. On the 24th of March 1514 the Council of Ten
revokes its decree of the previous May, and formally declares that
Titian is not to receive his broker's patent on the first vacancy, but
must wait his turn. Seemingly nothing daunted, Titian petitions again,
asking for the reversion of the particular broker's patent which will
become vacant on the death of Giovanni Bellini; and this new offer,
which stipulates for certain special payments and provisions, is
accepted by the Council. Titian, like most other holders of the
much-coveted office, shows himself subsequently much more eager to
receive its not inconsiderable emoluments than to finish the pictures,
the painting of which is the one essential duty attached to the office.
Some further bargaining takes place with the Council on the 18th of
January 1516, but, a few days after the death of Giovanni Bellini at the
end of November in the same year, fresh resolutions are passed