direct to Bologna in the train of his earlier patron Alfonso d'Este. It
was on this occasion that Charles's all-powerful secretary, the greedy,
overbearing Covos, exacted as a gift from the agents of the Duke of
Ferrara, among other things, a portrait of Alfonso himself by Titian;
and in all probability obtained also a portrait from the same hand of
Ercole d'Este, the heir-apparent. There is evidence to show that the
portrait of Alfonso was at once handed over to, or appropriated by, the
Emperor.

Whether this was the picture described by Vasari as representing the
prince with his arm resting on a great piece of artillery, does not
appear. Of this last a copy exists in the Pitti Gallery which Crowe and
Cavalcaselle have ascribed to Dosso Dossi, but the original is nowhere
to be traced. The Ferrarese ruler is, in this last canvas, depicted as a
man of forty or upwards, of resolute and somewhat careworn aspect. It
has already been demonstrated, on evidence furnished by Herr Carl Justi,
that the supposed portrait of Alfonso, in the gallery of the Prado at
Madrid, cannot possibly represent Titian's patron at any stage of his
career, but in all probability, like the so-called _Giorgio Cornaro_ of
Castle Howard, is a likeness of his son and successor, Ercole II.

Titian's first portrait of the Emperor, a full-length in which he
appeared in armour with a generalissimo's baton of command, was taken in
1556 from Brussels to Madrid, after the formal ceremony of abdication,
and perished, it would appear, in one of the too numerous fires which
have devastated from time to time the royal palaces of the Spanish
capital and its neighbourhood. To the same period belongs, no doubt, the
noble full-length of Charles in gala court costume which now hangs in
the _Sala de la Reina Isabel_ in the Prado Gallery, as a pendant to
Titian's portrait of Philip II. in youth. Crowe and Cavalcaselle assume