Marco, an important Venetian confrater-
nity. He decorated the Scuola with paint-
ings based on biblical stories, and his great
skill in executing these works built up his
reputation in Venice. Three famous
works—The Worship of the Golden Calf,
The Presentation of the Virgin, andThe Last
Judgement—were completed for the
Church of the Madonna. Eventually these
works were painted over, and most of his
other church paintings and frescoes have
not survived to modern times. For the
Scuola di San Rocco, he contributed mag-
nificent ceiling and wall paintings, includ-
ingThe Crucifixion, The Plague of Serpents,
andMoses Striking the Rock. He was com-
missioned to paint all of the halls of the
Scuola as well as the Church of San Rocco,
a work that produced more than fifty
paintings and on which the artist was oc-
cupied until his death in 1594.
In the meantime Tintoretto completed
large frescoes in the Doge’s Palace and the
Sala dello Scrutinio, a seat of power in
Venice, as well as many portraits of Vene-
tian rulers and noblemen. Several large
paintings on historical themes, including
the Battle of Lepanto, were destroyed in a
fire in 1577. Tintoretto’s masterpiece,Para-
dise, is an immense canvas 74 feet (22.5m)
in length by 30 feet (9m) high. Tintoretto’s
works reflect a new trend in art, the dra-
matic use of light and shade to tell a story,
as well as exaggerated movements, dra-
matic poses, and distortion of figures.
These would become key features of the
art of the Baroque period that followed
the Renaissance.
SEEALSO: Titian; Venice
Titian .............................................
(1490–1576)
Painter of Venice who is regarded by many
as one of the finest artists of the late Re-
naissance, and whose works display a mas-
tery of color, design, and painting tech-
nique. Born as Tiziano Vecellio in the
village of Pieve di Cadore in northern Italy,
he left at the age of nine to make his way
in Venice, where he first joined the work-
shop of a mosaic artist, Sebastiano Zuc-
cati. Titian next apprenticed in the Vene-
tian workshop of Gentile Bellini. He
became a close friend of Giorgione, whose
works had an important influence on
Titian’s own. One of his early commis-
sions was a fresco painting for the walls of
the German Merchant’s Foundation, where
he collaborated with Giorgione. At the age
of twenty-one Titian decorated the Scuola
del Santo of the Confraternity of Saint An-
thony in Padua with frescoes of Saint An-
thony. Titian’s most famous early work is
an altarpiece, entitledAssumption of the
Virgin, a monumental painting completed
in the Santa Maria Gloriosa church of Ven-
ice.
Other famous early works include
Flora, Madonna of the Cherries, Presenta-
tion of the Virgin, Christ and the Tribute
Money, Christ Crowned with Thorns, and
Sacred and Profane Love, in which the art-
ist contrasts clothed and nude figures of
the goddess Venus. These paintings made
the artist’s reputation in Venice, and word
of Titian’s mastery was soon spreading
throughout Europe. His work was in de-
mand by popes, by the Holy Roman Em-
peror Charles V, by King Philip II of Spain,
and by the Dukes of Ferrara and Urbino,
important art patrons of Italy. For Alfonso
d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara, Titian com-
pleted three famous mythological paint-
ings,Andrians, Worship of Venus, andBac-
chus and Ariadne. For the Gonzaga ruler
of Mantua, he painted aMadonna with a
Rabbitand a series of portraits of Roman
emperors, which were eventually de-
stroyed.Titian