[Illustration: _Titian's Daughter Lavinia._]

One of the most important chapters in our master's life closed with the
death of Aretino, which took place suddenly on the 21st of October 1556.
He had been sitting at table with friends far into the night or morning.
One of them, describing to him a farcical incident of Rabelaisian
quality, he threw himself back in his chair in a fit of laughter, and
slipping on the polished floor, was thrown with great force on his head
and killed almost instantaneously. This was indeed the violent and
sudden death of the strong, licentious man; poetic justice could have
devised no more fitting end to such a life.

In the year 1558 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, for very sufficient reasons,
place the _Martyrdom of St. Lawrence_, now preserved in the hideously
over-ornate Church of the Jesuits at Venice. To the very remarkable
analysis which they furnish of this work, the writer feels unable to add
anything appreciable by way of comment, for the simple reason that
though he has seen it many times, on no occasion has he been fortunate
enough to obtain such a light as would enable him to judge the picture
on its own merits as it now stands.[48] Of a design more studied in its
rhythm, more akin to the Florentine and Roman schools, than anything
that has appeared since the _St. Peter Martyr_, with a _mise-en-scène_
more classical than anything else from Titian's hand that can be pointed
to, the picture may be guessed, rather than seen, to be also a curious
and subtle study of conflicting lights. On the one hand we have that of
the gruesome martyrdom itself, and of a huge torch fastened to the
carved shaft of a pedestal; on the other, that of an effulgence from the
skies, celestial in brightness, shedding its consoling beams on the
victim.