original design we cannot authoritatively say--by assistants. Antonio
Grimani, supported by members of his house, or officers attached to his
person, kneels in adoration before an emblematic figure of Faith which
appears in the clouds holding the cross and chalice, which winged
child-angels help to support, and haloed round with an oval glory of
cherubim--a conception, by the way, quite new and not at all orthodox.
To the left appears a majestic figure of St. Mark, while the clouds upon
which Faith is upborne, rise just sufficiently to show a very realistic
prospect of Venice. There is not to be found in the whole life-work of
Titian a clumsier or more disjointed composition as a whole, even making
the necessary allowances for alterations, additions, and restorations.
Though the figure of Faith is a sufficiently noble conception in itself,
the group which it makes with the attendant angels is inexplicably heavy
and awkward in arrangement; the flying _pulli_ have none of the
audacious grace and buoyancy that Lotto or Correggio would have imparted
to them, none of the rush of Tintoretto. The noble figure of St. Mark
must be of Titian's designing, but is certainly not of his painting,
while the corresponding figure on the other side is neither the one nor
the other. Some consolation is afforded by the figure of the kneeling
Doge himself, which is a masterpiece--not less in the happy expression
of naïve adoration than in the rendering, with matchless breadth and
certainty of brush, of burnished armour in which is mirrored the glow of
the Doge's magnificent state robes.




CHAPTER IV

_Portraits of Titian's daughter Lavinia--Death of Aretino--"Martyrdom of