One of the most pleasant things recorded in the life of Titian, is the
long and intimate friendship that subsisted between him and the great
and good Emperor Charles V., whose name is known in history as one of
the wisest and best sovereigns of Europe. According to Vasari, Titian,
when he was first recommended to the notice of the Emperor by Pietro
Aretino, was in deep poverty, though his name was then known all over
Italy. Charles, who appreciated, and knew how to assist genius without
wounding its delicacy, employed Titian to paint his portrait, for which
he munificently rewarded him. He afterwards invited him to Madrid in the
most pressing and flattering terms, where he was received with
extraordinary honors. He was appointed gentleman of the Emperor's
bed-chamber, that he might be near his person; Charles also conferred
upon him the order of St. Jago, and made him a Count Palatine of the
empire. He did not grace the great artist with splendid titles and
decorations only, but showed him more solid marks of his favor, by be
stowing upon him life-rents in Naples and Milan of two hundred ducats
each, besides a munificent compensation for each picture. These honors
and favors were, doubtless, doubly gratifying to Titian, as coming from
a prince who was not only a lover of the fine arts, but an excellent
connoisseur. "The Emperor," says Palomino, "having learned drawing in
his youth, examined pictures and prints with all the keenness of an
artist; and he much astonished Æneas Vicus of Parma, by the searching
scrutiny that he bestowed on a print of his own portrait, which that
famous engraver had submitted to his eye." Stirling, in his Annals of
Spanish Artists, says, that of no prince are recorded more sayings which
show a refined taste and a quick eye. He told the Burghers of Antwerp
that, "the light and soaring spire of their cathedral deserved to be put
under a glass case." He called Florence "the Queen of the Arno, decked
for a perpetual holiday." He regretted that he had given his consent for
the conversion of the famous mosque of Abderahman at Cordova into a
cathedral, when he saw what havoc had been made of the forest of fairy
columns by the erection of the Christian choir. "Had I known," said he
to the abashed improvers, "of what you were doing, you should have laid
no finger on this ancient pile. You have built _a something_, such as is
to be found anywhere, and you have destroyed a wonder of the world."
The Emperor delighted to frequent the studio of Titian, on which
occasions he treated him with extraordinary familiarity and
condescension. The fine speeches which he lavished upon him, are as well
known as his more substantial rewards. The painter one day happening to
let fall his brush, the monarch picked it up, and presented it to the
astonished artist, saying, "It becomes Cæsar to serve Titian." On
another occasion, Cæsar requested Titian to retouch a picture which hung
over the door of the chamber, and with the assistance of his courtiers
moved up a table for the artist to stand upon, but finding the height
insufficient, without more ado, he took hold of one corner, and calling
on those gentlemen to assist, he hoisted Titian aloft with his own
imperial hands, saying, "We must all of us bear up this great man to
show that his art is empress of all others." The envy and displeasure
with which men of pomp and ceremonies viewed these familiarities, that
appeared to them as so many breaches in the divinity that hedged their
king and themselves, only gave their master opportunities to do fresh
honors to his favorite in these celebrated and cutting rebukes: "There
are many princes, but there is only one Titian;" and again, when he
placed Titian on his right hand, as he rode out on horseback, "I have
many nobles, but I have only one Titian." Not less valued, perhaps, by
the great painter, than his titles, orders, and pensions, was the
delicate compliment the Emperor paid him when he declared that "no other
hand should draw his portrait, since he had thrice received immortality
from the pencil of Titian." Palomino, perhaps carried away by an
artist's enthusiasm, asserts that "Charles regarded the acquisition of a
picture by Titian with as much satisfaction as he did the conquest of a
province." At all events, when the Emperor parted with all his provinces
by abdicating his throne, he retained some of Titian's pictures. When he
betook himself to gardening, watchmaking, and manifold masses at San
Yuste, the sole luxury to be found in his simple apartments, with their
hangings of sombre brown, was that master's St. Jerome, meditating in a
cavern scooped in the cliffs of a green and pleasant valley--a fitting
emblem of his own retreat. Before this appropriate picture, or the
"Glory," which hung in the church of the convent, and which was removed
in obedience to his will, with his body to the Escurial, he paid his
orisons and schooled his mind to forgetfulness of the pomps and vanities
of life.