MA.JAN.MAZZOTTA.pg.proof.corrs_Layout 1 08/12/2011 15:31 Page 12 A ‘gentiluomo da Ca’ Barbarigo’ by Titian in the National Gallery, London by ANTONIO MAZZOTTA ‘AT THE TIME he first began to paint like Giorgione, when he was no more than eighteen, [Titian] made the portrait of a gen- tleman of the Barbarigo family, a friend of his, which was held to be extremely fine, for the representation of the flesh-colour was true and realistic and the hairs were so well distinguished one from the other that they might have been counted, as might the stitches in a doublet of silvered satin which also appeared in that work. In short the picture was thought to show great diligence and to be very successful. Titian signed it in the shadow, but if he had not done so, it would have been taken for Giorgione’s work. Meanwhile, after Giorgione himself had executed the principal façade of the Fondaco de’ Tedeschi, Titian, through Barbarigo’s intervention, was commissioned to paint certain scenes for the same building, above the Merceria’.1 Vasari’s evocative and detailed description, which would seem to be the result of seeing the painting in the flesh, led Jean Paul Richter in 1895 to believe that it could be identified with Titian’s Portrait of a man then in the collection of the Earl of Darnley at Cobham Hall and now in the National Gallery, London (Fig.15).2 Up to that date it was famous as ‘Titian’s Ariosto’, a confusion that, as we shall see, had been born in the seventeenth century. In one respect it looked rather different in Richter’s time and closer to Vasari’s description than it does now. Photographs taken before its restoration in 1949 reveal that there was some repainting which thickened the man’s beard and hair, making it appear – more than it does now – that the hairs were ‘so well distinguished one from the other’.3 Also at that time his name written ‘in the shadow’ was still on the parapet. What now reads as Titian’s initials (‘· T · V ·’) had been 15. Portrait of a man (here identified as Gerolamo(?) Barbarigo), by Titian. c.1509. Canvas, 81.2 by 66.3 cm. (National Gallery, London). overpainted to read ‘TITIANVS · V ·’, with the last ‘V’ superimposed over the original ‘T’ and, to the right, the original ‘V’.4 By ‘in which was legible because it ‘cast’ a shadow. It is still possible to the shadow’ (‘in ombra’), a term that does not occur anywhere see what Vasari describes as ‘the stitches in a doublet of silvered else in the Lives, Vasari probably intended to indicate the satin’ which dot the ample sleeve (the ‘giubone’) of iridescent illusionistic effect given by a signature ‘carved’ on the parapet, satin which can certainly be described as ‘inargentato’, an adjective I am very grateful to Giovanni Agosti, Nicholas Penny and Carol Plazzotta for having drawn copy after Titian by Theodor Matham (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, followed every phase of my research on this work, encouraged me and commented and Braunschweig; inv. no.Z 1305); repr in P. Humfrey et al., eds.: exh. cat. The Age of corrected an earlier draft of this article. My heartfelt thanks also the staff of the library Titian: Venetian Renaissance Art from Scottish Collections, Edinburgh (National Gallery of the National Gallery. A special thank you goes to Jennifer Fletcher for her advice. of Scotland) 2004, p.105, fig.102. For the changes to the inscription, see C. Gould: 1 ‘A principio, dunque, che cominciò seguitare la maniera di Giorgione, non avendo più che National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1975, p.281. diciotto anni, [Tiziano] fece il ritratto d’un gentiluomo da Ca’ Barbarigo, amico suo, che fu 5 See S. Battaglia: Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, I, Turin 1961, p.643. The tenuto molto bello, essendo la somiglianza della carnagione propria e naturale, e sì ben distinti ice-blue colour we see now was probably originally more of a violet hue, given that i capelli l’uno dall’altro che si conterebbono, come anco si farebbono i punti d’un giubone di raso on the surface the red lake has deteriorated, although it is still present in the paint inargentato che fece in quell’opera. Insomma, fu tenuto sì ben fatto e con tanta diligenza, che, layers immediately below. The sleeve was then striped with long red streaks (still just se Tiziano non vi avesse scritto in ombra il suo nome, sarebbe stato tenuto opera di Giorgione. perceptible in good light conditions), which refine and emphasise the padded effect; Intanto, avendo esso Giorgione condotta la facciata dinanzi del Fondaco de’ Tedeschi, per see J. Dunkerton and M. Spring: ‘The Technique and Materials of Titian’s Early mezzo del Barbarigo furono allogate a Tiziano alcune storie che sono nella medesima sopra la Paintings in The National Gallery, London’, in S. Janssen, ed.: Titian: Jacopo Pesaro Merceria’; G. Vasari: Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del being presented by Pope Alexander VI to Saint Peter, Antwerp 2003, pp.9–21. 1550 e 1568, ed. R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi, VI, Florence 1987, p.156. 6 The Barbarigo identity was enthusiastically taken up by C. Phillips: ‘The “Ariosto” 2 J.P. Richter: ‘The winter exhibition of works by the Old Masters’, The Art of Titian’, The Art Journal (1905), p.6, who, however, attributed the identification to Journal (1895), p.90. Herbert Cook rather than Richter; see H. Cook: Giorgione, London 1900, pp.69–70; 3 It is reproduced, for example, in R.E. Fry: ‘Titian’s “Ariosto’’’, THE BURLINGTON earlier Phillips had doubted the identification; see C. Phillips: The Earlier Work of Titian, MAGAZINE 6 (1904), pp.136–39. London 1897, pp.58 and 60, note 3. Some scholars believe that the portrait is a self- 4 This inscription was still present in 1639, given that it appears in Reinier van Per- portrait; see Gould, op. cit. (note 4), pp.280–83; and most recently P. Holberton: review syn’s engraving after a drawing by Joachim von Sandrart (Lugt Collection, Fondation of E.M. Dal Pozzolo: Giorgione, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 153 (2011), p.676. Custodia, Paris). The presence of the inscription at that date is confirmed by another 7 G. Tagliaferro: ‘L’Ariosto di Tiziano (Londra) non è Ariosto; e il Barbarigo non si 12 january 2012 • cliv • the burlington magazine MA.JAN.MAZZOTTA.pg.proof.corrs_Layout 1 08/12/2011 15:31 Page 13 TITIAN’S ‘GENTILUOMO DA CA’ BARBARIGO’ that does not necessarily imply a silver colour, but merely silvery translucent reflections.5 While initially Richter’s suggestion met with a certain success, in the course of the last century scholars gradually abandoned the theory, frightened by the possibility that such an identification would imply a very early date for the painting. Vasari wrote that Titian painted the portrait when he was ‘no more than eighteen’, and that when Giorgione had finished painting the façade of the Fondaco de’ Tedeschi, Barbarigo arranged for Titian to paint some scenes on the same building above the Merceria: this would have had to have been around 1508. Today few people believe that the Portrait of a man is the ‘gentiluomo da Ca’ Barbarigo’ described by Vasari.6 Some years ago, Giorgio Tagliaferro published, on Augusto Gentili’s suggestion, a partial copy of Titian’s portrait (Fig.16) which had just appeared on the market: a work of interest not for its pictorial qualities (which are few) but for the inscription that appears in the top right-hand side, under the Barbarigo coat of 16. Portrait of Agostino Barbarigo, arms: ‘AVGVSTINVS BARBDICVS / AEQUES PATAVII PRAEFECTVS / by an anonymous ANNO MDLXV’.7 Tagliaferro argued that the presence of the artist. First half of Barbarigo coat of arms on a copy (even a partial copy) of the the seventeenth century? Canvas, National Gallery portrait, combined with Vasari’s precise 118 by 97 cm. description, was enough to prove that the sitter was indeed the (Private ‘gentiluomo da Ca’ Barbarigo’. Yet the inscription on the copy collection). refers to a Barbarigo who cannot possibly be the man painted by Titian: this was the famous Agostino, born in 1516, Prefect of ved at the Ferdinandeum in 1887 with an attribution to Paris Padua in 1565, who died in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.8 We Bordone in the bequest of Ludwig von Wieser.12 Among the know what he looked like, for several portraits of him exist, the fifty paintings donated by Von Wieser, there was also a portrait most famous of which is that by Veronese of a little after 1571 of ‘Generale Pietro Barbarigo’ attributed to Leandro Bassano.13 (Cleveland Museum of Art).9 Then how are we to explain Pietro Barbarigo (1569–1618) was the son of another Agostino this ‘transplant’ of the face of the National Gallery portrait? whose identity is not certain, and it would seem likely that his Tagliaferro proposed various theories, the most convincing of portrait and that of Agostino belonged to a series of commemo- which was that ‘in the absence of the sitter, the portrait of rative posthumous effigies of the Barbarigo family painted at the Agostino Barbarigo was copied from a prototype of a relation or start of the seventeenth century.14 For this reason it is not neces- ancestor’.10 Tagliaferro accepted the date of 1565 for the work, sary to take 1565 as the date at which the Agostino Barbarigo was and attributed it to Titian’s circle.