Titian’s place in art is high and unassailable.  What it would have been in colour without Giorgione we cannot say; but Giorgione could not affect his draughtsmanship.  As it is, the word Titianesque means everything that is rich and glorious in paint.  The Venetians, with their ostentation, love of pageantry, and intense pride in their city and themselves, could not have had a painter more to their taste.  Had Giorgione lived he would have disappointed them by his preoccupation with romantic dreams; Bellini no doubt did disappoint them by a certain simplicity and divinity; Tintoretto was stern and sparing of gorgeous hues.  But Titian was all for sumptuousness.

Not much is known of his inner life.  He seems to have been over-quick to suspect a successful rival, and his treatment of the young Tintoretto, if the story is true, is not admirable.  He was more friendly with Aretino than one would expect an adorner of altars to be.  His love of money grew steadily stronger.  As an artist he was a pattern, for he was never satisfied with his work but continually experimented and sought for new secrets, and although quite old when he met Michael Angelo in Rome he returned with renewed ambitions.  Among his last words, on his death-bed, were that he was at last almost ready to begin.

As it happens, it is the pyramidal tomb opposite Titian’s that was designed to hold his remains.  It is now the tomb of Canova.  Why it was not put to its maker’s purpose, I do not know, but to my mind it is a far finer thing than the Titian monument and worthier of Titian than of Canova, as indeed Canova would have been the first to admit.  But there was some hitch, and the design was laid in a drawer and not taken out again until Canova died and certain of his pupils completed it for himself.  Canova was not a Venetian by birth.  He was born at Passagno, near Asolo, in 1757, and was taught the elements of art by his grandfather and afterwards by a sculptor named Torretto, who recommended him to the Falier family as a “phenomenon”.  The Faliers made him their protege, continued his education in Venice, and when the time was ripe sent him to Rome, the sculptors’ Mecca.  In Rome he remained practically to the end of his life, returning to Venice to die in 1822.  It is possible not too highly to esteem Canova’s works, but the man’s career was marked by splendid qualities of industry and purpose and he won every worldly honour.  In private life he practised unremittingly that benevolence and philanthropy which many Italians have brought to a fine art.

It is these two tombs which draw most visitors to the Frari; but there are two pictures here that are a more precious artistic possession.  Of these let us look first at Bellini’s altar-piece in the Sacristy.  This work represents the Madonna enthroned, about her being saints and the little angelic musicians of whom Bellini was so fond.  In this work these musicians are younger than usual; one pipes while the other has a mandolin.  Above them is the Madonna, grave and sweet, with a resolute little Son standing on her knee.  The venerable holy men on either side have all Bellini’s suave benignancy and incapacity for sin:  celestial grandfathers.  The whole is set in a very splendid frame.  I give a reproduction opposite page 252, but the colour cannot be suggested.