“Being born at Cadore of honourable parents, he was sent when a child of nine years old by his father to Venice to the house of his father’s brother ... in order that he might be put under some proper master to study painting; his father having perceived in him even at that tender age strong marks of genius towards the art....  His uncle directly carried the child to the house of Sebastiano, father of the gentilissimo Valerio and of Francesco Zuccati (distinguished masters of the art of mosaic, by them brought to that perfection in which we now see the best pictures) to learn the principles of the art.  From them he was removed to Gentile Bellini, brother of Giovanni, but much inferior to him, who at that time was at work with his brother in the Grand Council-Chamber.  But Titian, impelled by Nature to greater excellence and perfection in his art, could not endure following the dry and laboured manner of Gentile, but designed with boldness and expedition.  Whereupon Gentile told him he would make no progress in painting, because he diverged so much from the old style.  Thereupon Titian left the stupid (goffo) Gentile, and found means to attach himself to Giovanni Bellini; but not perfectly pleased with his manner, he chose Giorgio da Castel Franco.  Titian then drawing and painting with Giorgione, as he was called, became in a short time so accomplished in art, that when Giorgione was painting the facade of the Fondaco de’ Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German Merchants, which looks towards the Grand Canal, Titian was allotted the other side which faces the market-place, being at the time scarcely twenty years old.  Here he represented a Judith of wonderful design and colour, so remarkable, indeed, that when the work came to be uncovered, it was commonly thought to be the work of Giorgione, and all the latter’s friends congratulated him as being by far the best thing he had produced.  Whereupon Giorgione, in great displeasure, replied that the work was from the hand of his pupil, who showed already how he could surpass his master, and, what was more, Giorgione shut himself up for some days at home, as if in despair, seeing that a young man knew more that he did.”

Fortunately, the exact date can be fixed when the frescoes on the Fondaco de’ Tedeschi were painted, for we have original records preserved from which we learn the work was begun in 1507 and completed towards the close of 1508.[154] If Titian, then, was “scarcely twenty years old” in 1507-8, he must have been born in 1488-9.  Dolce particularly emphasises his youthfulness at the time, calling him un giovanetto, a phrase he twice applies to him in the next paragraph, when he is describing the famous altar-piece of the ‘Assunta,’ the commission for which, as we know from other sources, was given in 1516.

“Not long afterwards he was commissioned to paint a large picture for the High Altar of the Church of the Frati Minori, where Titian, quite a young man (pur giovanetto), painted in oil the Virgin ascending to Heaven....  This was the first public work which he painted in oil, and he did it in a very short time, and while still a young man (e giovanetto).”