the requirements of the theme as Titian, with all his legitimate
splendour and serene dignity, remains below it. With Tintoretto as
interpreter we are made to see the beautiful episode as an event of the
most tremendous import--one that must shake the earth to its centre. The
reason of the onlooker may rebel against this portentous version, yet he
is dominated all the same, is overwhelmed with something of the
indefinable awe that has seized upon the bystanders who are witnesses of
the scene.

[Illustration: _The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple. Accademia
delle Belle Arti, Venice. From a Photograph by Naya._]

But now to discuss a very curious point in connection with the actual
state of Titian's important canvas. It has been very generally
assumed--and Crowe and Cavalcaselle have set their seal on the
assumption--that Titian painted his picture for a special place in the
Albergo (now Accademia), and that this place is now architecturally as
it was in Titian's time. Let them speak for themselves. "In this room
(in the Albergo), which is contiguous to the modern hall in which
Titian's _Assunta_ is displayed, there were two doors for which
allowance was made in Titian's canvas; twenty-five feet--the length of
the wall--is now the length of the picture. When this vast canvas was
removed from its place, the gaps of the doors were filled in with new
linen, and painted up to the tone of the original...."

That the pieces of canvas to which reference is here made were new, and
not Titian's original work from the brush, was of course well known to
those who saw the work as it used to hang in the Accademia. Crowe and
Cavalcaselle give indeed the name of a painter of this century who is
responsible for them. Within the last three years the new and