by Löwy_.]

[Illustration: _Aretino. Pitti Palace, Florence. From a Photograph by E.
Alinari_.]

To this period belongs also the _Annunciation of the Virgin_ now in the
Cathedral of Verona--a rich, harmonious, and appropriate altar-piece,
but not one of any special significance in the life-work of the painter.

Shall we not, pretty much in agreement with Vasari, place here, just
before the long-delayed visit to Rome, the _Christ with the Pilgrims at
Emmaus_ of the Louvre? A strong reason for dating this, one of the
noblest, one of the most deeply felt of all Titian's works, before
rather than after the stay in the Eternal City, is that in its
_naïveté_, in its realistic episodes, in its fulness of life, it is so
entirely and delightfully Venetian. Here again the colour-harmony in its
subdued richness and solemnity has a completeness such as induces the
beholder to accept it in its unity rather than to analyse those infinite
subtleties of juxtaposition and handling which, avoiding bravura,
disdain to show themselves on the surface. The sublime beauty of the
landscape, in which, as often elsewhere, the golden radiance of the
setting sun is seen battling with masses of azure cloud, has not been
exceeded by Titian himself. With all the daring yet perfectly
unobtrusive and unconscious realism of certain details, the conception
is one of the loftiest, one of the most penetrating in its very
simplicity, of Venetian art at its apogee. The divine mansuetude, the
human and brotherly sympathy of the Christ, have not been equalled since
the early days of the _Cristo della Moneta_. Altogether the _Pilgrims at
Emmaus_ well marks that higher and more far-reaching conception of
sacred art which reveals itself in the productions of Titian's old age,