Note 79 — Chapter VIII · VENETIAN PAINTING OF THE RENAISSANCE

Titian’s Age. All the available material on this disputed matter is offered by Mr. Herbert Cook and Dr. George Gronau in a controversy printed as appendices to Cook’s Giorgione, London, 1907. The early evidence is very conflicting.

Writing in 1557 Dolce implies Titian was born about 1489

„ „ 1566–7 Vasari „ „ „ „ 1489

„ „ 1564 A Spanish Envoy „ „ „ 1474

„ „ 1567 A Spanish Consul „ „ „ 1482

„ „ 1571 Titian himself „ „ „ „ 1477

„ „ 1584 Borghini „ „ „ „ 1478–9

Writing in 1545 and 1548 Titian refers to his old age and disabilities (Cook, p. 141 note), expressions more natural if he was sixty-eight and seventy-one than they would be if he were only fifty-six and fifty-nine.

Mr. Cook’s theory that Titian and his Spanish official friends grossly exaggerated his age to secure prompter remittances from the Emperor seems to me gratuitous and flimsy. Dr. Gronau convinces me that neither Dolce nor Vasari can be regarded as serious witnesses. L. Hourticq in La Jeunesse de Titien, Paris, 1919, adds next to nothing to Cook in maintaining the later date for Titian’s birth.

The whole weight of evidence points to the fact that Titian told the broad truth about his age, perhaps, indulging in a round number. I am sure he was well over ninety when he described himself as ninety-five in the letter of 1571, and that he died all but a centenarian.