[Illustration:  Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino.  Uffizi Gallery, Florence.  From a Photograph by E. Alinari.]

These last years had been to Titian as fruitful in material gain as in honour.  He had, as has been seen, established permanent and intimate relations not only with the art-loving rulers of the North Italian principalities, but now with Charles V. himself, mightiest of European sovereigns, and, as a natural consequence, with the all-powerful captains and grandees of the Hispano-Austrian court.  Meanwhile a serious danger to his supremacy had arisen.  At home in Venice his unique position was threatened by Pordenone, that masterly and wonderfully facile frescante and painter of monumental decorations, who had on more than one occasion in the past been found in competition with him.

The Friulan, after many wanderings and much labour in North Italy, had settled in Venice in 1535, and there acquired an immense reputation by the grandeur and consummate ease with which he had carried out great mural decorations, such as the facade of Martin d’Anna’s house on the Grand Canal, comprising in its scheme of decoration a Curtius on horse-back and a flying Mercury which according to Vasari became the talk of the town.[25] Here, at any rate, was a field in which even Titian himself, seeing that he had only at long intervals practised in fresco painting, could not hope to rival Pordenone.  The Friulan, indeed, in this his special branch, stood entirely alone among the painters of North Italy.

The Council of Ten in June 1537 issued a decree recording that Titian had since 1516 been in possession of his senseria, or broker’s patent, and its accompanying salary, on condition that he should paint “the canvas of the land fight on the side of the Hall of the Great Council looking out on the Grand Canal,” but that he had drawn his salary without performing his promise.  He was therefore called upon to refund all that he had received for the time during which he had done no work.  This sharp reminder operated as it was intended to do.  We see from Aretino’s correspondence that in November 1537 Titian was busily engaged on the great canvas for the Doges’ Palace.  This tardy recognition of an old obligation did not prevent the Council from issuing an order in November 1538 directing Pordenone to paint a picture for the Sala del Gran Consiglio, to occupy the space next to that reserved for Titian’s long-delayed battle-piece.

That this can never have been executed is clear, since Pordenone, on receipt of an urgent summons from Ercole II., Duke of Ferrara, departed from Venice in the month of December of the same year, and falling sick at Ferrara, died so suddenly as to give rise to the suspicion of foul play, which too easily sprang up in those days when ambition or private vengeance found ready to hand weapons so many and so convenient.  Crowe and Cavalcaselle give good grounds for the assumption