from Venice in the month of December of the same year, and falling sick
at Ferrara, died so suddenly as to give rise to the suspicion of foul
play, which too easily sprang up in those days when ambition or private
vengeance found ready to hand weapons so many and so convenient. Crowe
and Cavalcaselle give good grounds for the assumption that, in order to
save appearances, Titian was supposed--replacing and covering the
battle-piece which already existed in the Great Hall--to be presenting
the Battle of Spoleto in Umbria, whereas it was clear to all Venetians,
from the costumes, the banners, and the landscape, that he meant to
depict the Battle of Cadore fought in 1508. The latter was a Venetian
victory and an Imperial defeat, the former a Papal defeat and an
Imperial victory. The all-devouring fire of 1577 annihilated the _Battle
of Cadore_ with too many other works of capital importance in the
history both of the primitive and the mature Venetian schools. We have
nothing now to show what it may have been, save the print of Fontana,
and the oil painting in the Venetian Gallery of the Uffizi, reproducing
on a reduced scale part only of the big canvas. This last is of Venetian
origin, and more or less contemporary, but it need hardly be pointed out
that it is a copy from, not a sketch for, the picture.

[Illustration: _The Battle of Cadore (from a reduced copy of part only).
Uffizi Gallery, Florence. From a Photograph by G. Brogi._]

To us who know the vast battle-piece only in the feeble echo of the
print and the picture just now mentioned, it is a little difficult to
account for the enthusiasm that it excited, and the prominent place
accorded to it among the most famous of the Cadorine's works. Though the
whole has abundant movement and passion, and the _mise-en-scène_ is
undoubtedly imposing, the combat is not raised above reality into the
region of the higher and more representative truth by any element of