Giorgione: Mary Magdalen

Is Giorgione's "Laura" his version of Mary Magdalen? Like most of his paintings this one has defied interpreters for 500 years. Today most scholars agree that it is not a portrait and that it is not a depiction of Petrarch's lover.

Giorgione: "Portrait of a Young Woman (Laura)." 41x33.6 cm. Vienna.

The catalog entry for the 2004 Giorgione exhibition provided some tantalizing hints that could point to the Magdalen even though she is not fair-haired and does not hold the traditional jar of ointment. Her garb and pose indicate a Venetian courtesan but other elements depict a woman of virtue.

"Her sumptuous fur-lined red garment is, more than an item of male attire, the winter dress of Venetian women of pleasure…However, as noted by Goffen (1997), the thin white veil that partly covers her hair and falls over her breast is a typical accessory of married women…. The paradox that accompanies the interpretation of this painting lies in the fact that laurel is also a symbol of conjugal virtue…Giorgione’s Laura—regardless of whether she is a learned courtesan or a virtuous wife—is characterized by the extraordinary charge of sensuality and eroticism that makes this image unique in the painting of the early 16th century."* (197)

Maybe the painting is not as unique as the catalog suggested. In 2001 Paul Joannides discussed another portrait of a young woman that bore a remarkable similarity to the "Laura." He noted that it had often been attributed to Giorgione but insisted that "the closest comparisons are with Titian's work and there can be no serious doubt that it is his…."** (94) He continued,

"The Bust of a Young Woman is often thought to be a portrait of a courtesan,…There is an obvious link of mood and gesture with Giorgione’s Laura,…it is probably a fragment of a narrative composition….But the action is ambiguous: is she opening her dress to reveal her breast, like Laura, or closing it in modesty? Given the high finish and luxurious color, this fragment is more likely to have formed part of a painting for a private house than a public place…"(95-6)

"Perhaps more likely is that she is a Magdalene in a Mary and Martha, the subject represented in Milan in the work of Bernardino Luini and his circle and one that would certainly have appealed to Titian, allowing him to contrast female types. But without further evidence no suggestion can be more than speculative." (96)

Titian is the most prolific and famous painter of Mary Magdalens. His many versions of a beautiful, semi-nude, weeping penitent Magdalen spread all over Europe. His versions do not depict the gaunt Magdalen of Donatello, emaciated after years of fasting in the desert, but a still beautiful woman who has only recently thrown off her courtesan's finery, and appears covered only by her gorgeous red hair.

This portrayal no doubt represented Titian's own preference as well as the preferences of his aristocratic patrons. In 1531 Duke Federico of Mantua asked Titian for a Magdalen that he could present as a gift,

"I would like you to make me a St. Magdalen, as lachrymose as can be...and that you make every effort to make it beautiful, which for you will not be remarkable as you cannot do otherwise, when you really want to..."***

In the 19th century Anna Jameson devoted a whole chapter in "Sacred and Legendary Art" to Mary Magdalen. In her own inimitable manner she noted the different styles of various times and places and expressed her opinion on the beautiful but distasteful Venetian versions.

in the display of luxuriant female forms, shadowed (not hidden) by redundant fair hair, and flung in all the abandon of solitude, amid the depth of leafy recesses, or relieved by the dark umbrageous rocks; in the association of love and beauty with the symbols of death and sorrow and utter humiliation; the painters had ample scope, ample material, for the exercise of their imagination and the display of their skill: but what has been the result? They have abused these capabilities even to license; they have exhausted the resources of Art in the attempt to vary the delineation; and yet how seldom has the ideal of this most exquisite subject been--I will not say realized—but even approached? We have Magdalenes who look as if they never could have sinned, and others who look as if they never could have repented; we have Venetian Magdalenes with the air of courtesans and Florentine Magdalenes with the air of Ariadne's; and Bolognese Magdalenes like sentimental Niobe's;... and Dutch Magdalenes, who wring their hands like repentant washerwomen. The Magdalenes of Rubens remind us of nothing so much as of the "unfortunate Miss Bailey;" and the Magdalenes of Van Dyke are fine ladies who have turned Methodists.**** ###

*Giorgione, Myth and Enigma: edited by Sylvia Ferino-Pagden and Giovanna Nepi Scire, Vienna, 2004, pp. 197-8.
**Paul Joannides, Titian to 1518, Yale, 2001.
*** Rona Goffen, Titian's Women, Yale, 1997. p. 177.
****Anna Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, Boston, 1895, v. 1, p. 353.

Giorgione and Jan van Scorel

Jan van Scorel: Madonna with Wild Roses, c. 1530, Utrecht, Central Museum.

Despite the title the presence of Joseph and the Ass in the right background indicates a "Rest on the flight into Egypt."








Jan van Scorel, an artist born in the Netherlands around 1495, traveled to Venice to study around 1520, only ten years after the death of Giorgione. Scholars speculate that during his stay he became familiar with the work of Giorgione and Titian. He certainly would have seen the famous frescoes at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, as well as Titian’s famous Assunta in he Frari.

In 1530 Marcantonio Michiel, a Venetian patrician, saw the painting that would become known as the “Tempest” in the home of Gabriel Vendramin. In his notes Michiel described the painting as the “little landscape on canvas, representing stormy weather and a gipsy woman with a soldier,” and said it was by Giorgio di Castelfranco. Coincidentally, right after the “Tempest” entry, Michiel noted a “picture representing Our Lady with St. Joseph in the desert,” and said it was by John Scorel of Holland. The painting would most likely be a version of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt.”

One year later, Michiel noted another Scorel in the home of Giovanni Ram at S. Stefano. “The small picture representing the Flight into Egypt, is by John Scorel.” (121). Giovanni Ram’s collection also included two other small pictures representing the flight into Egypt by an unnamed Flemish painter. (122)* (Either one of these "Rests" might have looked like the Scorel on the left.)

[In my paper on the “Tempest” I have argued that it is also a version of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt.”]

Northern painters of sacred subjects like Patenir, David, and Memling were very popular with Venetian collectors. The lesser-known Jan Scorel would appear to have been just as popular. In 1966 Max Friedlander wrote of the vagaries of Scorel’s fame:**

The opinions of the sixteenth century are unanimous on Jan van Scorel and proclaim his fame loudly and--the reasons for this fame….So unbounded is our admiration for Netherlandish painting that Scorel’s determined and conscious turning away from tradition seems at first sight to be a dangerous uprooting. In quite recent times, it is true, there is a dawning tendency to recognize the positive side of the Rome pilgrim’s achievement…

Scorel’s popularity probably stemmed from the influences that Giorgione and other Italian painters exerted on his work. Scorel illustrates the continued importance of sacred subjects like the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” in Venice as well as the “naturalistic” treatments of Italian masters. Here is Friedlander’s account of Scorel’s artistic pilgrimage.

In that same year [1520], the year of Raphael’s death, he probably crossed into Italy and stayed for some time at Venice. From there he made a journey to the Holy land, not merely as a pious pilgrim but also as a mentally alert traveler eager to see the places where Christ’s feet had trodden. This painter’s desire to interpret the biblical scene more ‘correctly’ than had been possible for his predecessors by expressing time and place of the action in the costume, landscape, and architecture could not, of course, lead to results that would satisfy our modern historical sense. Nevertheless,…he was able to offer his contemporaries plausible novelty. The town of Jerusalem, painted in the landscape backgrounds of his religious pictures after studies from nature, was viewed with awe and curiosity….

Scorel returned to Venice from the East, visited several other Italian towns and finally reached Rome…Short as his stay in Rome was, it made a decisive and lasting impression on his entire production.

Because of the Italian influence Scorel represents a break from Netherlandish tradition. In a way, his paintings should be regarded as a primary source for students of Giorgione. He was in Venice only ten years after Giorgione’s death. We know that he was a serious and attentive observer. Michiel’s sketchy notes were recorded two decades after Giorgione’s death. The young Vasari only visited Venice in 1541. Scorel left no written records but his paintings should provide students with visual clues to both the subject matter and manner of Giorgione. Max Friedlander noted that even though Scorel studied in Rome after his sojourn in Venice, the Venetian experience stayed with him.

As a result of his Dutch temperament when he tried to be a Roman he became a Venetian.

This finely dressed Mary Magdalene certainly looks Venetian.


*The Anonimo: Notes on Pictures and Works of Art in Italy, London, 1903.


**Max Friedlander, From Van Eyck to Bruegel, London, 1966, pp. 126-132.

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: Castelfranco Altarpiece

Commentators have always regarded Giorgione’s “Castelfranco Altarpiece” as a unique and original work of art. It is Giorgione’s only known altarpiece, and although he used a traditional subject, he characteristically brought it to a new level. In their 1999 Giorgione catalog Teriseo Pignatti and Filoppo Pedrocco pointed to the extraordinary color scheme compared to other contemporary works.

These are all objective pieces of evidence, but they do not explain the unmistakable uniqueness of Giorgione’s altarpiece, which we feel constitutes the first attempt to convey true atmospheric effects through pure vibrations of color, both in the figures and in the distant landscape. There is a profusion of velvet crimsons in the figures, grass greens and gilded damascenes, the likes of which had never before been seen in Emilia or Venice. This consistent development and reshaping of Bellini’s premises and skilled application of Carpaccio’s fracturing of color is fundamental to Giorgione’s extremely personal work.* (128)

In a 2009 study of Giorgione, written in conjunction with the exhibition in Giorgione’s home town of Castelfranco Veneto that commemorated the 500th anniversary of the painter’s death, Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo wrote:

it would be unjust to diminish the importance of the very personal reworking that this young talent dared to express when he found himself standing before the great blank spaces of the panel,…[His] lifting the Madonna up to the highest possible height…but at the same time using that ‘emblematic” green cloth to tie them together and taking the back out of the chapel so that a preponderant landscape element might be added…is indicative of an approach that was totally original and free of conditioning.** (167)

My wife and I saw the Altarpiece in the spring of 2010. We had attended the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America that had been held that year in Venice, and decided to take the train to Castelfranco to see if we could get into the Giorgione exhibition. That Sunday was the closing day and the exhibition was sold out but we were able to see the Altarpiece on display in the Cathedral next door.

The first thing I noticed was the relatively small size of this extraordinarily beautiful painting that had been so carefully cleaned and restored in Venice only a few years before. It would certainly be dwarfed by Giovanni Bellini’s famed Venetian altarpiece in the church of S. Zaccaria that was also completed in 1505. The small size of the “Castelfranco Altarpiece” stems from the fact that it was meant not for the high altar in the Cathedral but for a small funerary chapel.

The whole story of the altarpiece is told best by Salvatore Settis in an extremely well researched essay that appeared in the exhibition catalog for the 2004 Giorgione exhibition that had been jointly sponsored by the Accademia in Venice and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. For obvious reasons the Altarpiece was not included in the exhibition, but the essay by Settis was one of the highlights of the catalog.***

Settis related the history of Tuzio Costanzo, a Sicilian adventurer, in the service of the King and Queen of Cyprus toward the end of the 15th century. After the death of the King the threat of succession problems led the Venetian Signory to recall the Queen, the famed Caterina Cornaro, to the Veneto and take the government of the island into its own hands. She established herself in Asolo where her home became a humanist center. Always faithful to Caterina, Tuzio Costanzo became a Venetian condotierre and established his residence in Castelfranco.

In 1504 the death of his son, Matteo, himself serving with Venetian forces in Ravenna, led Tuzio to establish a funerary chapel in the Castelfranco cathedral for Matteo, and eventually for himself. Settis agrees with those who believe that the death of Matteo occasioned Giorgione’s commission.

Not only does the death of Matteo help to establish the dating of the Altarpiece, but it also helps to solve some of the mystery that has surrounded this unusual altarpiece. For example, Settis argued that that the large rectangular box at the bottom with the Costanzo coat of arms was a “Sarcophagus of Porphyry,” a material that had “symbolic connotations that were markedly funerary.” Moreover, such sarcophagi were extremely rare. “In Italy they were found only in Rome and in Sicily, especially in the cathedrals in Monreale…and in Palermo...” (142).

The Sicilian connection also helps to establish the identity of the armored saint. It’s neither St. George nor St. Liberalis, the patron saint of the Cathedral, but St. Nicasius, a popular Sicilian saint holding the banner of the Order of Jerusalem.
“In this case, the only candidate is St. Nicasius, venerated in Palermo and Messina, where his cult is associated with that of St. Francis (exactly as in the Altarpiece).” (p. 144).

The Sicilian heritage and connections of Tuzio Costanzo explain the rare appearance of St. Nicasius so far from home.“The St Nicasius of the Castelfranco Altarpiece is one of those described by Fabio Bisogni as “displaced saints (santi fouri posto)”, common only in one part of Italy and very rare (and therefore very difficult to recognize) in others…” (144).

Above the sarcophagus the very unusual direction of the gazes of both Madonna and Child derives from the nature of the composition.

But the sad gaze of the mourning Madonna from Castelfranco: is not directed at the Son…, and the Son is not looking at the shining armor of the warrior saint. Both mother and child focus on the sarcophagus with the Costanzo coat of arms, and their gazes are the only visual link between the upper and lower parts of the painting; their sad and self-absorbed attitude must be related to a recent death, and the coat of arms on the sarcophagus reveals whose death they mourn, in a reference to the tombstone on the wall close by that bears the name of Matteo Costanzo. (146)

I would just like to add an observation that has been inspired by Settis’ study. Above the sarcophagus there is a white marble altar on which the Madonna’s throne rests. But Franciscan spirituality regarded the Madonna herself as an altar on which her Son, the Eucharist, is placed. For confirmation we need only look at the white cloth underneath the Infant that also covers Mary’s head. It is the corporale that always covers an altar. Giorgione would later use the corporale in his famous “Tempest” where it winds around Mother and Child in much the same way.

But why two altars? On occasion, a funerary chapel is opened for Mass. At the height of the Mass, immediately after the consecration, the priest utters an ancient formula: “Lord, let your angel take this sacrifice to your Altar in Heaven.” At every Mass the sacrifice offered at the earthly altar would be merged with the eternal sacrifice of the Heavenly Altar. In Giorgione’s painting we see the Heavenly Altar (Mary) right on top of the earthly altar.

This concept, that seems so strange to viewers today, is reinforced by Giorgione’s artistic genius. Where is the viewer in this painting? We are not at floor level with the saints. We seem to look down on them. How is it possible for us to see the landscape in the background behind the curtain? The landscape in which we live is in the background. The figures in the foreground are in another world.


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

** Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo: Giorgione, Milan, 2009.

***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.

Giorgione and the Young Titian

Titian: "The Flight into Egypt." (probably 1507-8), Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum.



In his 2001 study, “Titian to 1518, the Assumption of Genius,” Paul Joannides provided an exhaustive analysis of Titian’s early career that also happened to shed a great deal of light on Giorgione. Joannides included an introductory chapter that covered practically all we know about the life and work of Giorgione. More importantly, his discussion of Titian provided insights that applied to both painters.*

Since we know so little about Giorgione, it is useful to approach him through his contemporaries. What if we were to conduct a little experiment? Suppose that Titian, for example, had died in 1510, at the same time as Giorgione. What would we say about him? What would we say about his work up to that time?

In 1510 Giorgione was about 33 while Titian would only have been about 21. If Titian had been taken by the same plague that claimed Giorgione’s life, today he would be regarded as a second-rate or maybe even a third-rate painter of sacred subjects. According to Joannides,

“Sebastiano [del Piombo] seems to have been further advanced in his career than Titian before mid-1511, and his work more controlled and mature.” (p. 129)

Here is a list of Titian’s early work compiled from Joannides who stressed that attributions are difficult and that dates are usually approximate.

Titian, Flight into Egypt ( probably 1507-8, retouched c. 1510) Oil on canvas 206x336 cm. St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum (p. 36, figure 25).

Titian, Visitation (probably 1507-8), Oil on canvas, 212x150 cm. Venice, Museo Correr. (p. 41, figure 29).

Titian, re-worked by Francesco Vicellio, Adoration of the Shepherds (probably 1507 and 1524). Oil on canvas, 221x174 cm. Houston. (p.44, figure 30).
.
Antonio Zanetti after Titian, Judith/Justice (1760). Rome, Biblioteca Herziana. (p. 50, figure 33). [From the Fondaco dei Tedeschi]

Antonio Zanetti after Titian, Standing Compagno della Calza (1760). Rome. Biblioteca Herziana. (p. 62, figure 46). [From the Fondaco dei Tedeschi]

Francesco Molo after Titian, Standing Nude Woman (C. 1650). (p. 64, figure 48). [From the Fondaco dei Tedeschi]

Page 66. Figure 51. Antonio Zanetti after Titian, Two Nude Women (1760). Rome. Biblioteca Herziana. (p.66, figure 51). [From the Fondaco dei Tedeschi]

Titian, Virgin and St. Joseph, Adoring the Child (probably 1507–8). Oil on panel, 19.1x16.2 cm. North Carolina Museum of Art. (p. 74, figure 55).

?Titian, St. Jerome (probably 1508). Oil on panel, 45.2x78.4 cm. Formerly Vienna, private collection; present whereabouts unknown. (p.74, figure 58).

Titian, Story of Myrrah and Cinyras and the Birth of Adonis (probably 1509). Oil on panel, 35x106 CM. Padua, Museo Civico. (p.78, figure 62). [Actually figure 63]

Titian, Story of Erischthon (probably 1509), Oil on panel, 35x106 cm. Padua, Museo Civico. (p. 78, figure 63). [Actually figure 62]

Titian, Unidentified Subject (probably 1509). Oil on panel, 46x44 cm. Private Collection, on loan to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fogg Museum of Art. (p. 80, figure 66). [Three figures in a landscape]

Titian, Risen Christ (probably 1509) Oil on panel, 131x 81.5 cm. (p. 84, figure 70). [private collection]

Titian, Circumcision (probably 1509), 37.5x79.3 cm, Yale. (p. 87, figure 77).

Titian, Christ and the Adulteress (probably 1510). Oil on canvas, 139.2 x 181.7 cm (cut down), Glasgow. (p.88, figure 78).

Titian, Bust of a Young Woman (the 'Courtesan') (probably 1510). Oil on canvas transferred from panel, 31.7x 24.1 cm. Pasadena. (p. 95, figure 83).

Titian, Virgin and Child ('The Lochis Madonna') (probably 1510). Oil on panel, 38x 47 cm. Bergamo. (p. 97, figure 85).

Altogether Joannides attributed 17 different works from 1507 through 1510 and practically all were sacred subjects.

The first one on the list is very interesting because it indicates that Titian’s first painting was a version of the “Flight into Egypt” with the Madonna and Child being followed by Joseph through a wooded landscape. Even more interesting is the fact that x-rays in 2000 revealed that this oil had been painted over a scene of the Madonna and Child with St. Joseph that Joannides at one point called a “Thanksgiving” but then later called, “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt.”

Not only does this discovery show that the subject of the “Rest” was popular, but it also provides a note of caution for those who make much of pentimenti or changes of mind. Joannides wrote,

“it demonstrates that the artist's habit of superimposing one composition upon another, amply documented from his later work, is a constant from the very beginning of his career....” (p. 39)

If the young Titian painted over an old canvas in the first decade of the 16th century, shouldn’t we suspect that Giorgione might have done the same thing in the Tempest?

Following the “Flight” we have a “Visitation” and an “Adoration of the Shepherds” that Joannides believed was started by Titian in 1507 but only completed by his brother in 1524. Then we get to a series of later drawings and etchings done from Titian’s fresco work on the famed Fondaco dei Tedeschi.

The story of the Fondaco frescoes, on which both Giorgione and Titian worked, is well known. Vasari saw the frescoes before they were ruined but even then he confessed that he could not decipher their subject. Even today scholars scratch their heads especially since the Venetian weather eventually ruined the frescoes. Today, we have a couple of fragments, and the 17th and 18th century etchings in Joannides list. The prominent place of a Judith with the head of Holofernes certainly indicates a sacred subject.

Venetian records show that Giorgione was commissioned to do the work on the Fondaco, and no mention is made of Titian. Despite Vasari’s story about the popularity of Titian’s contribution, my guess is that Giorgione created the whole iconographic scheme and even did the drawings, and that he employed the much younger Titian as a painting sub-contractor. Joannides argued that even in 1511 when Titian did frescoes in Padua, he lacked basic drawing skills.

Sacred subjects dominate the remainder of the list. In addition to the obvious ones, Joannides speculated that the so-called Bust of a Young Woman (the 'Courtesan') might be Mary Magdalen.




“Perhaps more likely is that she is a Magdalene in a Mary and Martha, the subject represented in Milan in the work of Bernadino Luini and his circle and one that would certainly have appealed to Titian, allowing him to contrast female types. But without further evidence no suggestion can be more than speculative.” (p. 96)









Finally, Joannides expressed puzzlement about a painting that he could only call an “Unidentified Subject.”




“This little–seen painting, which represents a Standing Soldier and a Seated Woman with a Child,…has been given to various hands, but the attribution to Titian, first proposed and then discarded by Berenson was cogently restated by Hilliard Goldfarb after the panel had been cleaned and restored. It is wholly convincing…. The complex building at the left rear is very similar in type to that which dominates the Visitation and the successive planes of the landscape and the juxtaposition resemble those of the Gypsy Madonna." (p. 78)

Joannides pointed out the similarity of this painting, as well as another one of a soldier standing guard over a woman and children in the Philadelphia Museum, to Giorgione’s famous “Tempest,” and noted that it was also mysterious.

“It too could well be arboreal in its concerns--the woman and child sit under a substantial tree--but until the subject--which cannot be found in the Metamorphoses--has been identified, this cannot be taken as certain.” (p. 79)

Years ago Edgar Wind also noted the resemblance to the “Tempest” but gave this painting to a follower of Giorgione and called it “Fortezza and Carita.” Rather than a follower Joannides claimed that Titian’s painting; as well as the one in Philadelphia; might all share a common ancestor with the “Tempest.”

“in fact since the Philadelphia and the ex-Northampton paintings are inseparable in subject matter, one might wonder whether their relation to the Tempest should be reformulated. Might it not be the case that Giorgione, aware of the narrative illustrated in those two paintings, merely adapted it to his own purposes from some visual model common to both?” (p.82)**(See below for a longer excerpt)

I have argued that the “Tempest” is a depiction of “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” Given their similarity, Titian’s “Unidentified Subject” could also be a version of the “Rest.” We have a man, woman, and child in a landscape. We only have to try to discover why Joseph is portrayed as a young, virile, armed soldier.

"Allegory" Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Despite the compositional similarity no one has ever claimed that the Titian “Rest” is in the same league as the “Tempest.” Even the more impressive Philadelphia version, labeled “Allegory” and cautiously attributed to Palma Vecchio, is hidden away in storage. If Titian had died in 1510 no one would have ever compared him to Giorgione. Even though Joannides found traces of Titian’s later genius in these early works, they are only of interest today because of what we know of the later Titian.

According to Joannides it was only after Giorgione’s death that Titian began to appreciate and study the craftsmanship of Giovanni Bellini and Central Italian painters like Raphael. Only then would Titian work on the Gypsy Madonna and the Concert Champetre. Indeed, Joannides dated the Concert Champetre to 1511 but agreed with those who claimed that Titian only finished it in 1530.

Joannides believed that the brief period during which Giorgione and Titian both worked in Venice constituted a special moment in time.

“It is evident that around 1500 a fashion arose in Venice for the visual representation of novel literary and mythological subject matter. This fashion was relatively short-lived and, since many of the subjects treated at this time were not taken up by later artists, it has left behind a number of paintings that are inherently difficult to identify. (p. 81)

Neverheless, the period also saw novel attempts to represent traditional sacred subjects. During this time Giorgione was in his prime and led the way in bringing sacred subjects to a new level; something that Titian would eventually build on to become the greatest painter of the 16th century.

*Paul Joannides, Titian to 1518, the Assumption of Genius, Yale, 2001.

**"this consideration might return us for a moment to the ex-Northampton panel. It is immediately obvious that, although their styles differ, there is a close compositional relation between it and Giorgione's Tempest. In the former the male figure clad in a breastplate and carrying a halberd, is clearly a soldier. The corresponding male figure in the Tempest carries no weapon and wears no armor, although he too is described as a soldier by Michiel. But perhaps Michiel, aware of works such as the ex-Northampton panel or another, larger, painting in Philadelphia which is very similar in arrangement, simply jumped to the conclusion that the man in the Tempest was also a soldier. in fact since the Philadelphia and the ex-Northampton paintings are inseparable in subject matter, one might wonder whether their relation to the Tempest should be reformulated. Might it not be the case that Giorgione, aware of the narrative illustrated in those two paintings, merely adapted it to his own purposes from some visual model common to both?… But it might be, in contrast, that the Tempest represents an eccentric utilization of a compositional formula devised for some quite unrelated subject." (p. 82)