Giorgione Catalogs

 

The years leading up to the five hundredth anniversary in 2010 of the death of Giorgione saw the publication of six major Giorgione catalogs. This truly remarkable publishing phenomenon marked an increasing interest in Venice and the Venetian Renaissance, an interest that seemed to revolve around the mystery surrounding Giorgione and his work. At a conference held in Washington in 2006 to mark an exhibition devoted to the Venetian renaissance, one scholar remarked that the conference was all about Giorgione.

Below find brief reviews of the six catalogs, all of them beautifully illustrated. The images below are from the covers of the respective catalogs.

In addition to a brief outline of their contents, I have tried to point out their divergent views on the Tempest and on the David Teniers' copy of a "lost" Giorgione, usually called the Discovery of Paris. The learning and exhaustive research of the various authors has been of great value to me, but I do admit that none of them has been able to see the  Tempest as The Rest on the Flight into Egypt.  Moreover, when they discuss the Discovery of Paris, that only exists in a copy by David Teniers, they invariably follow Marcantonio Michiel's mistaken identification of the painting. They all attach importance to this lost work but none can see it as Giorgione's version of the medieval legend concerning the encounter of the Holy Family with robbers on the Flight into Egypt. For the interpretation of both paintings see my profile on academia.edu.

Anderson, Jaynie: Giorgione, the Painter of Poetic Brevity,  Paris, 1997.

Giorgione: Boy with an Arrow

Jaynie Anderson’s study is a solo work of almost 400 pages. Seven essays by the author take up the first three quarters of the book. Anderson studies Giorgione’s “poetic style;” his biographers and connoisseurs; the results of scientific analysis of his paintings; his patrons; his imagery of women; his critical fortunes; and his work on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.

This comprehensive catalog is broken up into accepted works; controversial attributions; copies after Giorgione; and rejected attributions. All are discussed in varying degrees.

Concerning the Tempest Anderson strongly rejected the Adam and Eve interpretation of Salvatore Settis, as well as all other previous explanations that might be connected with a “story or text.”

For her the “most convincing interpretation” of the Tempest can be found in Colonna’s “Hypnerotomachia Poliphilo.” The painting depicts the encounter of the “young hero Poliphilo” with a deity. Although Anderson does not follow Marcantonio Michiel’s identification of the “soldier and the gypsy,” she does accept his description of the Teniers copy of the so-called “Discovery of Paris.”

A very valuable feature of Anderson’s catalog is the collection of documents relating to Giorgione in the original Italian at the back of the book.

Pignatti, Terisio and Pedrocco, Filippo:  Giorgione,  Rizzoli, NY, 1999.

Giorgione: Trial of Moses

This catalog appeared two years after Jaynie Anderson’s but it obviously represented a lifetime of work on the part of the two Italian authors. A little less than half the catalog is an essay on “The Life and Work of Giorgione,” by Terisio Pignatti. The author discusses the life and background of Giorgione and then devotes about 40 pages to a discussion of the attributed works.

In the second half of the book Filippo Pedrocco provides an invaluable summary of the attribution, provenance, and interpretive history of each work. Especially valuable is the attempt to date the various works from early, through middle, to late career.

Although Pedrocco lists most of the different interpretations of the Tempest, Pignatti concludes that there is an “undoubted presence of an underlying theme” but that the painting still “remains difficult to interpret.” Like Anderson the authors do not contest Michiel’s identification of the Teniers copy of the  Discovery of Paris.

Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, and Nepi-Scire, Giovanna, exh. Cat.:  Giorgione, Myth and Enigma,  Vienna, 2004.

Giorgione: Tempest

If I could only have one catalog in my library, my choice would be  Giorgione, Myth and Enigma,  the exhibition catalog for the groundbreaking 2004 Giorgione exhibition jointly sponsored by the Accademia in Venice and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Both institutions contributed their Giorgione works to the exhibition, and for the first time the Tempest traveled outside of Italy for the Vienna show.

The catalog featured a number of essays by leading scholars highlighted by a brilliant essay on the Castelfranco altarpiece by Salvatore Settis. There were also four essays offering differing interpretations of the Tempest.

The 25 catalog entries were written by a group of world-class scholars including Giovanna Nepi-Scire and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, the respective curators from the two Museums sponsoring the exhibition. In her essay on the Tempest, Nepi-Scire declined to take sides in the interpretation controversy.

This catalog is especially noteworthy for the appendix that includes three essays on the extensive scientific studies conducted in preparation for the exhibition.

Brown, David Alan, and Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia: Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, Washington, 2006.

Giorgione: Three Philosophers

Two years after the 2004 Giorgione exhibition an equally ambitious venture was jointly launched by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the National Gallery in Washington. The resulting catalog reflected the attempt of the exhibition to cover the broad range of the Venetian Renaissance.

The catalog featured works of Giorgione along with those of Giovanni Bellini, Titian, and lesser known artists like Paris Bordone and Lorenzo Lotto. In the catalog these works were arranged according to themes just as in the actual exhibition.

After four introductory essays different scholars each took a theme: Peter Humfrey “Sacred Images;” Mario Lucco “Sacred Stories;” Jaynie Anderson “Allegories and Mythologies;” Sylvia Ferino-Pagden “Pictures of Women—Pictures of Love;” and David Alan Brown, the curator of the National Gallery, “Portraits of Women.”

Of all the catalogs this one is the broadest in scope but since the Tempest was not included in the exhibition, there is no separate catalog item on Giorgione’s most famous painting, or a discussion of the Teniers' painting.

Eller, Wolfgang:  Giorgione Catalog Raisonne,  Petersberg, 2007.

Giorgione: Portrait

Wolfgang Eller’s Giorgione, Catalogue Raisonne, was not associated with any exhibition. Subtitled, “Mystery Unveiled,” this solo effort obviously represented a lifetime of work on the part of this scholar.

Twelve introductory essays take up a little less than a quarter of this 200 page volume, but they are packed with information and learning. Especially valuable is his essay, “The Most Significant Stylistic and Painterly Criteria for an Attribution to Giorgione.” No one looks at a painting or describes it more closely than Eller.

It appears to me that his strong point is attribution and he makes some radical departures from the usual. He gives the Pastoral Concert to Giorgione, and also believes that he participated in Titian’s,  Noli Me Tangere.

If Eller is strong on attribution and painterly criteria, I believe that his interpretations are often overly complicated. His interpretation of the Tempest is so involved that it is difficult to follow. He accepts with some puzzlement the identification of the Teniers copy of the lost Giorgione as the  Discovery of Paris.

Finally, his catalog is extremely valuable since, like Anderson, he provides a discussion of every painting that was ever associated with Giorgione—even the false attributions. This feature alone makes this relatively inexpensive, and easily usable catalog a must for any student.

Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo: Giorgione, Milan, 2009.

Giorgione: Portrait of a Warrior

Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo’s book is not so much a catalog as a study of Giorgione and his world. Its monumental size and heft is due primarily to copious and beautifully rendered illustrations, as well as to the extraordinary scholarship of the author. 

In the first chapter dal Pozzolo reviews what little biographical information we have of Giorgione. Chapter two provides the Venetian and humanist background. The bulk of the book is in Chapter three, an extensive tour of all the known works of Giorgione.

The author briefly reviews most of the many interpretations of the Tempest and declines to accept any of them. He hesitates to offer one of his own but suggests that we try to see the mysterious painting as a Venetian visitor to the home of Gabriele Vendramin might have seen it. In that case the description of a soldier and a gypsy found in the notes of Marcantonio Michiel might be feasible

Speaking of Michiel, dal Pozzolo accepts his description of The Discovery of Paris, and attaches more importance to that lost painting than any of the other catalogs. He argues that along with a lost Aeneas and Anchises, it represents the beginning and end of a Trojan cycle.

I disagree with many of dal Pozzolo's interpretations but I do agree with his learned final assessment of Giorgione.

 After his extraordinary feat at the Fondaco, the public image of the painter from Castelfranco must have changed, taking on the features of a giant. And that was when Zorzi became Giorgione. His diversity in comparison with all the other artists of the lagoon was proclaimed… From that moment on, the more talented and restless youths stopped emulating Bellini’s harmonic universes, Carpaccio’s neat cosmopolitan sceneries, those brilliant Antonellesque glares that by then were so far-away, to chase after a dream… of a new way of conceiving a painting and of making it come alive. [344]

###

Giorgione Catalogs Revised

The years leading up to the five hundredth anniversary in 2010 of the death of Giorgione, saw the publication of six major Giorgione catalogs. This truly remarkable publishing phenomenon marked an increasing interest in Venice and the Venetian Renaissance, an interest that seemed to revolve around the mystery surrounding Giorgione and his work. At a conference held in Washington in 2006 to mark an exhibition devoted to the Venetian renaissance, one scholar remarked that the conference was all about Giorgione.

Below find brief reviews of the six catalogs, all of them beautifully illustrated. The images below are from the covers of the respective catalogs.

In addition to a brief outline of their contents, I have tried to point out their divergent views on the Tempest and on the David Teniers' copy of a "lost" Giorgione, usually called the Discovery of Paris. The learning and exhaustive research of the various authors has been of great value to me, but I do admit that none of them has been able to see the  Tempest as The Rest on the Flight into Egypt.  Moreover, when they discuss the Discovery of Paris, that only exists in a copy by David Teniers, they invariably follow Marcantonio Michiel's mistaken identification of the painting. They all attach importance to this lost work but none can see it as Giorgione's version of the medieval legend concerning the encounter of the Holy Family with robbers on the Flight into Egypt. For the interpretation of both paintings see my profile on academia.edu.

Anderson, Jaynie: Giorgione, the Painter of Poetic Brevity,  Paris, 1997.

Giorgione: Boy with an Arrow

Jaynie Anderson’s study is a solo work of almost 400 pages. Seven essays by the author take up the first three quarters of the book. Anderson studies Giorgione’s “poetic style;” his biographers and connoisseurs; the results of scientific analysis of his paintings; his patrons; his imagery of women; his critical fortunes; and his work on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.

This comprehensive catalog is broken up into accepted works; controversial attributions; copies after Giorgione; and rejected attributions. All are discussed in varying degrees.

Concerning the Tempest Anderson strongly rejected the Adam and Eve interpretation of Salvatore Settis, as well as all other previous explanations that might be connected with a “story or text.”

For her the “most convincing interpretation” of the Tempest can be found in Colonna’s “Hypnerotomachia Poliphilo.” The painting depicts the encounter of the “young hero Poliphilo” with a deity. Although Anderson does not follow Marcantonio Michiel’s identification of the “soldier and the gypsy,” she does accept his description of the Teniers copy of the so-called “Discovery of Paris.”

A very valuable feature of Anderson’s catalog is the collection of documents relating to Giorgione in the original Italian at the back of the book.

Pignatti, Terisio and Pedrocco, Filippo:  Giorgione,  Rizzoli, NY, 1999.

Giorgione: Trial of Moses

This catalog appeared two years after Jaynie Anderson’s but it obviously represented a lifetime of work on the part of the two Italian authors. A little less than half the catalog is an essay on “The Life and Work of Giorgione,” by Terisio Pignatti. The author discusses the life and background of Giorgione and then devotes about 40 pages to a discussion of the attributed works.

In the second half of the book Filippo Pedrocco provides an invaluable summary of the attribution, provenance, and interpretive history of each work. Especially valuable is the attempt to date the various works from early, through middle, to late career.

Although Pedrocco lists most of the different interpretations of the Tempest, Pignatti concludes that there is an “undoubted presence of an underlying theme” but that the painting still “remains difficult to interpret.” Like Anderson the authors do not contest Michiel’s identification of the Teniers copy of the  Discovery of Paris.

Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, and Nepi-Scire, Giovanna, exh. Cat.:  Giorgione, Myth and Enigma,  Vienna, 2004.

Giorgione: Tempest

If I could only have one catalog in my library, my choice would be  Giorgione, Myth and Enigma,  the exhibition catalog for the groundbreaking 2004 Giorgione exhibition jointly sponsored by the Accademia in Venice and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Both institutions contributed their Giorgione works to the exhibition, and for the first time the Tempest traveled outside of Italy for the Vienna show.

The catalog featured a number of essays by leading scholars highlighted by a brilliant essay on the Castelfranco altarpiece by Salvatore Settis. There were also four essays offering differing interpretations of the Tempest.

The 25 catalog entries were written by a group of world-class scholars including Giovanna Nepi-Scire and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, the respective curators from the two Museums sponsoring the exhibition. In her essay on the Tempest, Nepi-Scire declined to take sides in the interpretation controversy.

This catalog is especially noteworthy for the appendix that includes three essays on the extensive scientific studies conducted in preparation for the exhibition.

Brown, David Alan, and Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia: Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, Washington, 2006.

Giorgione: Three Philosophers

Two years after the 2004 Giorgione exhibition an equally ambitious venture was jointly launched by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the National Gallery in Washington. The resulting catalog reflected the attempt of the exhibition to cover the broad range of the Venetian Renaissance.

The catalog featured works of Giorgione along with those of Giovanni Bellini, Titian, and lesser known artists like Paris Bordone and Lorenzo Lotto. In the catalog these works were arranged according to themes just as in the actual exhibition.

After four introductory essays different scholars each took a theme: Peter Humfrey “Sacred Images;” Mario Lucco “Sacred Stories;” Jaynie Anderson “Allegories and Mythologies;” Sylvia Ferino-Pagden “Pictures of Women—Pictures of Love;” and David Alan Brown, the curator of the National Gallery, “Portraits of Women.”

Of all the catalogs this one is the broadest in scope but since the Tempest was not included in the exhibition, there is no separate catalog item on Giorgione’s most famous painting, or a discussion the Teniers' painting.

Eller, Wolfgang:  Giorgione Catalog Raisonne,  Petersberg, 2007.

Giorgione: Portrait

Wolfgang Eller’s Giorgione, Catalogue Raisonne, was not associated with any exhibition. Subtitled, “Mystery Unveiled,” this solo effort obviously represented a lifetime of work on the part of this scholar.

Twelve introductory essays take up a little less than a quarter of this 200 page volume, but they are packed with information and learning. Especially valuable is his essay, “The Most Significant Stylistic and Painterly Criteria for an Attribution to Giorgione.” No one looks at a painting or describes it more closely than Eller.

It appears to me that his strong point is attribution and he makes some radical departures from the usual. He gives the Pastoral Concert to Giorgione, and also believes that he participated in Titian’s,  Noli Me Tangere.

If Eller is strong on attribution and painterly criteria, I believe that his interpretations are often overly complicated. His interpretation of the Tempest is so involved that it is difficult to follow. He accepts with some puzzlement the identification of the Teniers copy of the lost Giorgione as the  Discovery of Paris.

Finally, his catalog is extremely valuable since, like Anderson, he provides a discussion of every painting that was ever associated with Giorgione—even the false attributions. This feature alone makes this relatively inexpensive, and easily usable catalog a must for any student.

Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo: Giorgione, Milan, 2009.

Giorgione: Portrait of a Warrior

Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo’s book is not so much a catalog as a study of Giorgione and his world. Its monumental size and heft is due primarily to copious and beautifully rendered illustrations, as well as to the extraordinary scholarship of the author. 

In the first chapter dal Pozzolo reviews what little biographical information we have of Giorgione. Chapter two provides the Venetian and humanist background. The bulk of the book is in Chapter three, an extensive tour of all the known works of Giorgione.

The author briefly reviews most of the many interpretations of the Tempest and declines to accept any of them. He hesitates to offer one of his own but suggests that we try to see the mysterious painting as a Venetian visitor to the home of Gabriele Vendramin might have seen it. In that case the description of a soldier and a gypsy found in the notes of Marcantonio Michiel might be feasible

Speaking of Michiel, dal Pozzolo accepts his description of The Discovery of Paris, and attaches more importance to that lost painting than any of the other catalogs. He argues that along with a lost Aeneas and Anchises, it represents the beginning and end of a Trojan cycle.

I disagree with many of dal Pozzolo's interpretations but do agree with his learned final assessment of Giorgione.

 After his extraordinary feat at the Fondaco, the public image of the painter from Castelfranco must have changed, taking on the features of a giant. And that was when Zorzi became Giorgione. His diversity in comparison with all the other artists of the lagoon was proclaimed… From that moment on, the more talented and restless youths stopped emulating Bellini’s harmonic universes, Carpaccio’s neat cosmopolitan sceneries, those brilliant Antonellesque glares that by then were so far-away, to chase after a dream… of a new way of conceiving a painting and of making it come alive. [344]

###

Giorgione:Castelfranco Altarpiece 2

Scholars have given a great deal of attention to the “dating” of Giorgione’s Castelfranco Altarpiece. In her 1997 catalog Jaynie Anderson agreed with those who gave it a very early date of 1500. She claimed that the painting was commissioned that year by Tuzio Costanzo, a condotierre, who wanted to prove to the Venetian government that he had no intention of returning to Cyprus.*


In his essay that appeared in the 2004 Giorgione exhibition catalog, Salvatore Settis argued for a 1504-5 date since Tuzio’s son, Matteo, had just died that year.** In a 2007 catalog Wolfgang Eller also argued for the 1504 date although his argument that Giorgione used the hand of St. Francis and the knots on his belt to indicate the date of composition is unconvincing.*** Earlier some scholars had even suggested a late date between 1508 and 1510.

Why is the dating so important? We know that Giorgione never dated or signed his paintings. If we can date a painting then we might get some insight into the circumstances that led to its creation. This insight might then help to interpret the work. But there is another even more important reason. Dating the innovative and accomplished Castelfranco altarpiece as early in Giorgione’s career as 1500 would then leave ten whole years for the rest of Giorgione’s work. Dating it in 1504 or later compresses the rest of his career into a much shorter span.

A shorter time span would create great difficulty for those who try to date Giorgione’s work on stylistic grounds. Indeed, it would also make it very difficult for those who see a kind of stylistic evolution during Giorgione’s career. In his 2004 essay Salvatore Settis pointed out the problems involved in stylistic analysis.

“The construction of a "stylistic development" or a "pictorial biography" of an artist often seems to me to take something for granted that is anything but, that is, that a painter's art and style must inevitably develop via a preordained route, growing in accordance with an evolutionary parable that the historian is able to predict with the use of his books.” (147)

“A difference in style may have been occasioned in and by either of these circumstances; certainly it is possible that one and the same painter may have consciously adopted different stylistic registers depending upon the nature of the commission and the intended final location of his pictures.” (148)

Such caution seems eminently reasonable.

As far as interpreting a painting is concerned I would go even further than Settis and argue that the most important primary source is the painting itself. I know that this sounds like a truism but in my work on Giorgione I have found that Art historians sometimes neglect this basic principle and because of their training as graduate students tend to spend more time examining obscure texts or boxes of municipal records than they do actually looking at the painting itself.

For example, in her Giorgione catalog Jaynie Anderson devoted most of her discussion to her findings on the background of the Castelfranco Altarpiece but she said very little about what was actually going on in the painting.

In his essay on the painting Salvatore Settis provided an extended description of the Altarpiece from an article in the “Quotidiano Veneto” of 1803.


“Above a floor covered in square tiles of marble of different colours rises a Sarcophagus of Porphyry, on which is painted the coat of arms of the noble family Costanzo. Tuzio, famous warrior, disconsolate because of the death of his son, having ordered the erection of the Altar, it appears that the painter has delicately tried to alleviate his pain, placing behind the Tomb in an elevated position, a throne of whitish marble, on which sits Our Lady, on her knees her small Divine Child, with his head turned to observe the Sarcophagus itself. Behind the Virgin and supporting her on one side is a piece of inlaid marble. The entire base of the Throne is covered by a most beautiful tapestry, which hangs down a little…so far as to cover the sarcophagus, emerging from beneath the folds of the rich crimson robe,…Behind the Sarcophagus and at the height of the Throne the picture is framed by a most beautiful crimson velvet, descending to the floor, which gives a pyramidal layout and artificially divides the upper part of the foreground of the painting. On the right…stands St. George…Of his feet, the right rests on the floor, the left on a small step leading up to the Sarcophagus,…St. Francis stands with both feet on the lowest level of the floor…” (135)

Some scholars dismiss the importance of such an observation 300 years after the painting but Settis placed much stock in it because he believed that the observer saw correctly, especially when calling the rectangular box at the base a sarcophagus. He also noted that the journalist employed a systematic way of looking at a painting.

I wish there had been contemporaries of Giorgione who had had the patience and diligence to record their observations of his work in such a systematic way as the journalist from the “Quotidiano Veneto.”

*Anderson, Jaynie: Giorgione, 1997.

**Salvatore Settis: “Giorgione in Sicily–On the Dating and Composition of the Castelfranco Altarpiece,” in Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, and Nepi-Scire, Giovanna: exh. Cat. Giorgione, Myth and Enigma, Vienna, 2004.

***Eller, Wolfgang: Giorgione Catalog Raisonne, Petersberg, 2007.

Giorgione and Titian

Titian: "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt," Longleat, Marquesse of Bath collection, oil on wood, 46.3 x 61.5 cm, c. 1510.




This version of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt received much notoriety a few years ago when it was stolen from the home of the Marquess of Bath in Wilshire. It was recovered in 2002 after a seven year search. At that time the painting was valued at 5 million pounds.

Lately I have been posting about various versions of the “Rest” by both Flemish and Italian artists to support my interpretation of Giorgione’s “Tempest” as a “Rest on the Flight into Egypt.” Perhaps no version comes closer in time and location than this one usually given to the young Titian.

However, in “Giorgione, Catalog Raisonne” (Petersberg, 2007) Wolfgang Eller attributed the painting to Giorgione. I find it difficult to agree with and sometimes even follow Eller’s overly complex interpretations, but no one looks at a painting better than him or explores painterly technique better in matters of attribution.

In catalog entry # 27 Eller wrote,

“Due to its high quality, especially of the figures and a number of stylistic characteristics and also when compared to other secured works by Giorgione, this painting is attributable to him.”

Eller argued that the “composition of the picture, the execution, and the expression of the figures” pointed to Giorgione. The treatment of the landscape also pointed to Giorgione.

“Titian’s landscapes look like a striped background decoration added on to the scenario…The feeling of space and the merging of the figures into the landscape as experienced in Giorgione’s works is missing with Titian.”

Eller also argued that a comparison with other Giorgione works supports his view. For example, the seated position and the expression of the Madonna can be seen in other Giorgione women including the one in the “Tempest.” “A Madonna of such figural and facial style and detail does not appear in Titian’s early works.”

The figures of St. Joseph and the infant also appear closer to Giorgione’s work. Even the trees bear witness to Giorgione. “The tree looks like the trees Giorgione painted in the “Tempesta”, the “Sunset/Tramonto”, and in the Allendale “Adoration of the Shepherds”…

Finally, Eller concluded by expressing his surprise that the painting is still given to Titian. “In the exhibition in Venice in 1990, the painting was hung in such a manner that the differences to Titian’s painterly technique were easy to recognize.”

I must confess that questions of attribution are somewhat beyond me. I am usually content to defer to the experts. If this painting is by Giorgione, it certainly establishes his familiarity with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. Even if it is by the young Titian, it demonstrates the popularity of the subject in Venice during the years when both he and Giorgione were establishing themselves as Venetian masters.

Actually, Vasari indicated that Titian painted more than one version of the Rest. Here are two excerpts from his life of Titian.

At the time he first began to paint like Giorgione, when he was no more than eighteen, Titian did the portrait of a friend of his, a gentleman of the Barberigo family…Meanwhile, after Giorgione himself had executed the principal façade of the Fondaco de’ Tedeschi, through Barbarigo Titian was commissioned to paint some scenes for the same building, above the Merceria. After this he painted a large picture with life-size figures which is now in the hall of Andrea Loredano, who lives near San Marcuola. This picture shows Our Lady on the journey to Egypt in the middle of a great forest, and it contains several landscapes. These were beautifully executed because Titian had studied this kind of painting for many months, when he gave hospitality for that purpose to some German painters who specialized in depicting verdant scenes and landscapes. In the woods he painted a number of animals, drawn form life, which are truly convincing and realistic. Pp. 444-5.

In the house of the lawyer Francesco Sonica, a crony of Titian’s, there is a portrait by Titian of Francesco himself, along with a large picture of Our Lady on the journey into Egypt. The Blessed Virgin has dismounted from the ass and is seated on a rock by the wayside; near at hand is St. Joseph and the little St. John, who is offering the Infant Christ some flowers gathered by an angel from the branches of a tree, which is in a wood full of animals; and in the distance the ass is grazing. All this forms a most graceful picture, which has been placed by the gentleman I mentioned in the palace he has built near Santa Justina in Padua. P. 460.

Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, Volume I, a selection. Translated by George Bull, Penguin Books, London, 1987.