Titian: His Life and the Golden Age of Venice. Sheila Hale

Titian meanwhile had made a second brief visit to the court of Alfonso’s nephew, Federico Gonzaga,19 the twenty-three-year-old 5th Marquis of Mantua. He went with Alfonso’s permission – it was normal practice for the two courts, which were so closely related by blood and geography, to exchange artists – but on the understanding that the completion of Bacchus and Ariadne and other works for the duke must take priority and he could therefore not stay for long in Mantua. He set off from Venice for Mantua on 26 January, carrying with him a letter of recommendation from Federico’s ambassador in Venice, Giambattista Malatesta:

      Most Illustrious and Excellent Signor and my most cherished patron. The present bearer is maestro Ticiano, most excellent in his art, and also a modest and gentlemanly person in every respect, who has postponed many of his works of the moment to come to kiss the hand of Your Excellency, as you have deigned to request me. Whereby I cannot do otherwise than recommend him.

      The letter was a formality. Federico had been asking Malatesta to invite Titian to his court since Christmas of the previous year, when he had hoped that ‘Maestro Tutiano pittor’ might spend the holidays with him. Titian had refused but promised the ambassador that he would certainly be in Mantua to kiss the hand of the marquis by the end of the first week in January. When he finally reached Mantua, late as usual, the marquis greeted him warmly, and before he reluctantly allowed him to depart for Ferrara ordered some work, which he seems to have wanted or needed to be done very soon. There is a note of urgency in the letter he wrote to his uncle on 3 February for delivery by Titian along with some presents; and its tone is very different from Alfonso’s temper tantrums:

      Most Illustrious and excellent Lord Uncle – Having asked Titian, the bearer of these presents, to execute certain works for me, he declares that he cannot serve me at present because he has promised to do some things for Your Excellency which will take a long time. For this reason I send him to attend you. But I beg you to send him back at once to expedite the work that I want from him, which will take only a few days, and as soon as he has done that he will return to the service of Your Excellency, who will have done me a most singular favour, and to whom I stand greatly recommended.

      Federico Gonzaga had come of age less than two years before Titian’s visit. Twenty-four years younger than his uncle Alfonso, he was a more sensitive, more self-indulgent and altogether more polished character. While he was still under the regency of his mother Isabella d’Este, Baldassare Castiglione, who would later be Federico’s ambassador in Rome, praised him in an early version of The Courtier as one of the most gifted of the sons of illustrious lords, ‘who may not have the power of their ancestors but make up for it in talent … In addition to his excellent manners and the discretion he shows at so tender an age he is said by those in charge of him to be wonderful in wit, desire for honour, courtesy and love of justice.’ He was a godson to Cesare Borgia, and as a boy of only ten had been sent, as a pledge for his father’s loyalty, to the magnificent court of Julius II, where he was pampered and indulged by the warrior pope and his cardinals. He developed a taste for luxury, especially the work of goldsmiths and jewellers, and his interest in painting was stimulated by the masterpieces by Michelangelo who was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and by Raphael, who made a sketch of him in armour and included a portrait of him in the School of Athens. At seventeen his father had contracted for him a dynastic marriage to Maria Paleologo, the eight-year-old daughter of the Marquis of Montferrat, to be consummated when the bride reached fifteen in 1524. (By that time, however, Federico, who was a notorious womanizer, had conceived a passion for Isabella Boschetti, the wife of one of his courtiers.) He and his mother kept a palace in Venice, where they often went for pleasure and where Federico was a member of one of the companies of the hose.