of the canvas where it is now placed, or replaced, derived an absolutely contrary impression.  First, is it conceivable that Titian in the heyday of his glory should have been asked to paint such a picture—­not a mere mural decoration—­for such a place?  There is no instance of anything of the kind having been done with the canvases painted by Gentile Bellini, Carpaccio, Mansueti, and others for the various Scuole of Venice.  There is no instance of a great decorative canvas by a sixteenth century master of the first rank,[28] other than a ceiling decoration, being degraded in the first instance to such a use.  And then Vasari, who saw the picture in Venice, and correctly characterises it, would surely have noticed such an extraordinary peculiarity as the abnormal shape necessitated by the two doors.  It is incredible that Titian, if so unpalatable a task had indeed been originally imposed upon him, should not have designed his canvas otherwise.  The hole for the right door coming in the midst of the monumental steps is just possible, though not very probable.  Not so that for the left door, which, according to the present arrangement, cuts the very vitals out of one of the main groups in the foreground.  Is it not to insult one of the greatest masters of all time thus to assume that he would have designed what we now see?  It is much more likely that Titian executed his Presentation in the first place in the normal shape, and that vandals of a later time, deciding to pierce the room in the Scuola in which the picture is now once more placed with one, or probably two, additional doors, partially sacrificed it to the structural requirements of the moment.  Monstrous as such barbarism may appear, we have already seen, and shall again see later on, that it was by no means uncommon in those great ages of painting, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

When the untimely death of Pordenone, at the close of 1538, had extinguished the hopes of the Council that the grandiose facility of this master of monumental decoration might be made available for the purposes of the State, Titian having, as has been seen, made good his gravest default, was reinstated in his lucrative and by no means onerous office.  He regained the senseria by decree of August 28, 1539.  The potent d’Avalos, Marques del Vasto, had in 1539 conferred upon Titian’s eldest son Pomponio, the scapegrace and spendthrift that was to be, a canonry.  Both to father and son the gift was in the future to be productive of more evil than good.  At or about the same time he had commissioned of Titian a picture of himself haranguing his soldiers in the pompous Roman fashion; this was not, however, completed until 1541.  Exhibited by d’Avalos to admiring crowds at Milan, it made a sensation for which there is absolutely nothing in the picture, as we now see it in the gallery of the Prado, to account; but then it would appear that it was irreparably injured in a fire which devastated the Alcazar of Madrid in 1621,