It is always held to be a mistake to take rather vague statements quite literally, as Mr. Cook has done, and to build thereon further conclusions.  When Dolce says that Titian painted with Giorgione at the Fondaco, “non avendo egli allora appena venti anni,” he is only trying to make out that his hero, here as everywhere, was a most unusual person (the whole dialogue is a glorification of the master).  For the same reason he makes the following remark, which we can absolutely prove to be false:—­the Assumption (he says) “fu la prima opera pubblica, che a olio facesse.”  Now at least one work of Titian’s was, then, already to be seen in a public place—­viz. the “St. Mark Enthroned, with Four Saints,” in Santo Spirito, afterwards removed to the sacristy of the Salute.  In other points, too, Dolce can be convicted of small errors and misrepresentations, partly on literary grounds, partly due to his desire to enhance the praise of Titian.

Vasari, again, should only be cited as witness when he speaks of works of art which he has actually seen.  In such a case, apart from slips, he is always a trustworthy guide.  Directly, however, he goes into biographical details or questions of chronology accuracy becomes nearly always a secondary matter.  Titian’s biography offers an excellent and most instructive example of this.  Vasari mentions first the birth and upbringing of the boy, then he speaks of Giorgione and the Fondaco frescoes, and goes on:  “dopo la quale opera fece un quadro grande che oggi e nella salla di messer Andrea Loredano....  Dopo in casa di messer Giovanni D’Anna ... fece il suo ritratto ...; ed un quadro di Ecce Homo, ...” and he goes on, “L’anno poi 1507....”  If it had not been that one of these pictures, once in the possession of Giovanni D’Anna, had been preserved (now in the Vienna Gallery), and that it bears in a conspicuous place the date 1543, it would be recorded in all biographies of Titian that he painted in 1507 an “Ecce Homo” for this Giovanni D’Anna.

If one goes further into Vasari’s account we read that Titian published his “Triumph of Faith” in 1508.  “Dopo condottosi Tiziano a Vicenza, dipinse a fresco sotto la loggetta ... il giudizio di Salamone.  Appresso tomato a Venezia, dipinse la facciata de’ Grimani; e in Padoa nella chiesa di Sant’ Antonio alcune storie ... de fatti di quel santo:  e in quella di Santo Spirito fece ... un San Marco a sedere in mezzo a certi Santi.”  We now know on documentary evidence that the Vicenza fresco (which was destroyed later) dated from 1521, and similarly that the frescoes at Padua were painted in 1511, whilst the date of the S. Mark picture may be fixed with probability at 1504.

These examples prove how inexact Vasari is here once more.  But it may be objected, supposing that he is inaccurate in statements which refer back, can he not be in the right in a case where he comes back, so to speak, straight from visiting Titian and writes down his observation about the master’s actual age?  To be sure; but when we find that so many other similar notices of Vasari are wrong, even those that refer to people whom he personally knew, we lose faith altogether.  In turning over the leaves of the sixth volume of the Sansoni edition of Vasari, in which only his contemporaries, some of them closely connected, too, with him, are spoken of, we find the following incorrect statements:—­