colouring and the general tone, surely point to a rather later date, to
a period, indeed, some ten years ahead of the time at which we have
arrived. If we are to accept the tradition that this Allegory, or
quasi-allegorical portrait-piece, giving a fanciful embodiment to the
pleasures of martial domination, of conjugal love, of well-earned peace
and plenty, represents d'Avalos, his consort Mary of Arragon, and their
family--and a comparison with the well-authenticated portrait of Del
Vasto in the _Allocution_ of Madrid does not carry with it entire
conviction--we must perforce place the Louvre picture some ten years
later than do Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Apart from the question of
identification, it appears to the writer that the technical execution of
the piece would lead to a similar conclusion.[11]

To this year, 1533, belongs one of the masterpieces in portraiture of
our painter, the wonderful _Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici in a Hungarian
habit_ of the Pitti. This youthful Prince of the Church, the natural
son of Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours, was born in 1511, so that
when Titian so incomparably portrayed him, he was, for all the perfect
maturity of his virile beauty, for all the perfect self-possession of
his aspect, but twenty-two years of age. He was the passionate
worshipper of the divine Giulia Gonzaga, whose portrait he caused to be
painted by Sebastiano del Piombo. His part in the war undertaken by
Charles V. in 1532, against the Turks, had been a strange one. Clement
VII., his relative, had appointed him Legate and sent him to Vienna at
the head of three hundred musketeers. But when Charles withdrew from the
army to return to Italy, the Italian contingent, instead of going in
pursuit of the Sultan into Hungary, opportunely mutinied, thus affording
to their pleasure-loving leader the desired pretext for riding back with
them through the Austrian provinces, with eyes wilfully closed the while
to their acts of depredation. It was in the rich and fantastic habit of