Cadore, or Titian's Country

Front matter

TITIAN'S COUNTRY LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET I TITIANS BRIDGE CADORE OR TITIAN'S COUNTRY. BY JOSIAH GILBERT, ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF ' THE DOLOMITE MOUNTAINS ' etc. ' There is a strange under-current of everlasting murmur about his name which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they.' J. Ruskin, Two Paths. ' A traveller who has visited all the other mountain-regions of Europe, and remains ignorant of the scenery of the Dolomite Alps, has yet to make acquaintance with Nature in one of her loveliest and most fascinating aspects.' J. Ball, Guide to the Eastern Alps. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1869. TO THE DEAR COMPANION OF THE JOURNEY OF LIFE, AS OF EACH ALPINE RAMBLE, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY HER VERY AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND.

Preface

. ED in the first instance to Cadore by the course of my wanderings among the Dolomite Mountains, the charm and the interest of the country drew me there again and again. The charm is due to a touch of Italian softness tempering Alpine severity and Dolomite grandeur. The interest centres in Titian. The scenery of Cadore and its neighbourhood in spired Titian's landscape ; its remote villages still treasure in their churches relics of his pictures ; its annals supplied him with the subject of one of his greatest, though, as it has long perished, one of his least known com positions ; while to us they curiously illustrate the life Of a small mountain republic from the earliest times.

PREFACE.

. VIII To enable others to participate, so far as may be, in the pleasure I have experienced in ram bling over the country ; in searching out its history ; above all in tracing its influence upon the life and genius of Titian ; has been the in tention of the following pages. The Illustrations, drawn with a pen upon stone, and lacking the effect and delicacy of etchings, as well as the skill of a more practised hand, will yet, it is hoped, sufficiently serve their purpose ; while the copy of Titian's original design for his ' Battle of Cadore ' possesses, it is believed, a value of its own. Marden Ash : May i, 1869. PAGE I -5 SI 83 CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Titian's House In Venice

Venice south and north — A visit to Titian's house — Its history — ■ Titian's household — -Titian's friends — A certain supper — The mountain prospect, and the native peak — Titian's death

Chapter II. Titian's Road To The Mountains

Cadore, and how to reach it — Titian's yearly progress — Treviso and its picture — The hills of Ceneda and Titian's villa — Roganzuolo — Titian as a landscape painter — What he took from Ceneda — Previtali's altarpiece — Serravalle — Forest of the Gran Consiglio — Titian's woodlatid

Chapter III. Titian Among The Mountains

Belluno and the Val di Mel — The Belluno Titians — Belluno scenery and Titian's landscape — Titian's farmsteads— Visit to Cimolais — Titian's mountains — Titian's dolomite — The dolomites of Bellini, Bonifazio, and others — Val di Zoldo and Zoppe — Approach to Cadore ....

Chapter IV. Cadore As It Is

Cadore in L'Anonimo — Shape and character of the country — From Sex ten to Cadore — The inn at Tai — The church at Pieve and its pictures — The Piazza and Pretura — Titian's house and the early fresco — Titian's visits to Cadore — The castle — The mountains, and Titian's use of them CONTENTS. X PAGE 121 154 192 219

Chapter V. Cadore As It Was

The interest of the story — Aborigines and the Roman era — The barbarian invasions — The Lombards — Social condition — Charlemagne and the Franks — Anarchy — Ot ho — Rise of popular liberties — Relations with Aquileia — The Counts of Camino — Virtual independence of Cadore — Prosperity — Patriarchal protectorate — The Vecelli — Allegiance transferred to Venice — The Venetian captains — Events of Titian's youth — Approaching troubles .....

Chapter VI. The Battle Of Cadore

Titian's lost battlepiece — Its various titles — Its date — Descriptions by eye-witnesses — Fontana's engraving — Its subject, the Battle of Cadore — Narrative of the Battle — Maximilian : his invasion of Cadore; Alviano; the two Vecelli; the march, the fight, the result — Burgmair's woodcut — The picture compared with the narrative — Titian's oil sketch in the Ufifizi — His original drawing ; his two chalk studies — The Wellesley sale ......

Chapter VII. The Rest Of The Story And The Other Vecelli

Maximilia?i's second raid upon Cadore — Battle of Vallesella — Surrender of Bottestagno — Ruin and peace — The Vecelli: Francesco, Orazio, Cesare, Tizianello, and the ' Orator ' — Famines, pestilence, and domestic difficulties — Davila at Cadore — Landslips from the Antelao — Degeneracy — Massena — Austrian rule — Cadore 's first deputy to the Italian Parliament ......

Chapter VIII. In And About Cadore

Life at Tai — The roccoli — Church of the '■Crocefisso' — Chapel of S. Dionisio — Destruction of Cancia — Churches of the ' Difesa ' at San Vito and Vigo — Vinigo and its Titian — Titian's Madonna children — Eremites of Monte Cridola — Monte Vedorchia and its circle of dolomites . CONTENTS. XI

Chapter IX. An Excursion From Cadore

page The German colonies — Visit to the Sette Comuni — Sappada and its origin — The ' Basin ' of Sauris — How to get there — The priest of Laggio — Fellow travellers — First sight of Sauris — Talk at the inn fire — Morning view — Path to the Tagliamento — A night capture — Return over the Mauria Pass . 243

Chapter X. Cadore The Cradle Of Landscape Art

Monte Zucco for a point of view — Cadore a?id Venice — The genius of landscape art — The pathos of Nature: in form, colour, shadow, mutability, and record of time — In sympathy with the pathos of life — Perception of the pathos of Nature — Period of its development concurrent with the eras of discovery, and the change in religious ideas — Influence of geographical knowledge and facilities for travel — Less wholesome influences in the conditions of modern civilisation — Titian's relation to the modern era — His greatness in colour, portrait, and landscape — His characteristic sadness — The special influences of Cadore and Venice upon his genius — Farewell . 276

Appendix

3" INDEX . LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Titian's Bridge Frontispiece page Sketch Map of Cadore -4 I. Titian's House in Venice, from Cadorin 4 II. The Antelao seen from Venice, from a Drawing by Mr. Ruskin . . . . . 28 III. IV Castle of Ceneda Cloud Effects from the ' Madonna and St. Catherine,' and Her Majesty's Landscape Titian 36 V. Serra valle Belluno 42 VI. 52 VII. VIII. Colontola, Titian's Mill Titian's Farmsteads 58 6o Mountain Forms from the 'Adoration of the Magi,' ' Presentation in the Temple,' and ' Supper at Emmaus '..... IX. oS X. Mountains, from a Drawing in the Louvre . Mountains, from a Titian Drawing, engraved by 7o XI. Domenico Campagnola 7- Dolomite Forms in Titian and others of the Venetian School ..... XII. 74 XIII. XIV. Zoppe So Domegge, with Cadore in the distance Pieve di Cadore and Monte Marmarolo The Vecelli Altarpiece at Cadore . 94 XV. 96 XVI.

XVII. 98 106 Titian's early Fresco LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XIV PAGE XVIII. The Castle of Cadore and Monte Cridola . . 114 XIX. The Antelao and Marmarolo, from Titian drawings 118 XX. The Pelmo {%), from a Titian Drawing . .120 120 XXI. The Chapel of La Malina . . . .124 XXII. Peutelstein, or Bottestagno . . . -132 XXIII. Photograph from Fontana's Engraving of the ' Battle of Cadore' . . . . .164 XXIV. Valle and the Battlefield . . . .176 XXV. Monte Duranno, San Martino, and the Battle Burialground . . . . . .178 XXVI. Photograph from Burgmair's ' Battle of Cadore ' . 180 XXVII. Facsimile of Titian's original Design for his 'Battle of Cadore' . . . . .186 XXVIII. Titian's Study for the Falling Horseman . . 188 XXIX Castle of Cadore and Monte Marmarolo . ,196 *XXX. TheTrePonti . . . . .216 XXXI.

Monte Bosconero, from Zoppe . . .242 XXXII. Sauris . . . . . .266 XXXIII. The Pelmo, from Monte Zucco . . .278 * The number of this plate is given at p. 80 in mistake for XXXI. WOODCUTS. I. Val Auronzo 86 II. The Sexten Thai III. Titian's Tower . 89 IOI IV. Titian's House in Cadore io3 V. Sasso di Pelmo, from Santa Lucia VI. Monte Civita, from Caprile 109 140 VII. Monte Cristallo and the Diirren See, near Landro VIII. Cortina. . . . . . . 142 169 IX. Monte Antelao, from San Vito . CADORE.

Chapter I. Titian's House In Venice

Venice south and north — A visit to Titian's house — Its history — Titian's household — Titian's friends — A certain supper — The mountain prospect, and the native peak — Titian's death. T^VERYONE who has visited Venice is familiar with the gay pleasure side open to the sunny south, and the vista of islands floating in a lustrous haze. This is Venice as it lives a lovely picture in the memory. This is the Venice of modern art — of Turner and of Ruskin. This is the Venice of history — of Dandolo and Faliero. Here her fleets assembled, whether for commerce or for war ; here her doges and her nobles showed their state, or met in council ; here, round the tall Campanile of St. Mark, flowed for aees the brilliant life of Venice ; and here the faded Bride still bestows her welcome on the stranger.

The northern side offers no such picture, is warmed by no such memories. It is but now and then that the p. TITIAN S HOUSE IN VENICE. 2 traveller's gondola shoots out upon the northern water, and he finds himself among wharves, and barracks, and isolated churches, bits of gardens, backs of houses, un comfortable walls stained here and there with decaying frescoes, sharers in the general dilapidation. Yet this was once a fashionable quarter ; here was a favourite promenade, and here Titian lived. This alone ought to redeem it from neglect, and considering the numbers in these days to whom Titian is more than a name, the many with whom as the prince of Venetian art he stands the rival of the proudest among Venetian doges and captains — who feel indeed that Venice herself, while the fabric of her merchant princes was crumbling upon her shores, lived on in splendour by means of her painters in every treasure-house of art — it is strange that it has not done so.

It is stranger still, while it explains the cause of the neglect, that till within the last few years the abode of ' II divino Tiziano,' as his countrymen love to call him, was so lost sight of that biographers and en quiring travellers alike reported it entirely unknown. The identification dates from the year 1833; but as the particulars are contained in an Italian pamphlet familiar only to those interested in such matters, the spot has remained in much the same obscurity as before. But while this forgotten house was that in which the greater portion of his great life was passed ; where the thoughts came to him, which he wrought into TITIAN A MOUNTAINEER. 3 glorious shapes that the world worships ; where at last he died ; it does not possess the interest of his birthplace. That is not to be found in Venice.

Titian was not even a blood Venetian. He was not a son of the lagune, but, like nearly all his con temporaries or followers in the so-called Venetian school, a continental. They were men of Castelfranco, Conegliano, Pordenone, Bassano, Verona, Brescia, Ber gamo ; all on the neighbouring mainland of Venice ; and he was a man of Cadore ; in this again distin guished as emphatically a man not of the plains, but of the mountains. Mountain air was the first he breathed, and mountain air he yearly breathed afresh. Mountains and forests were his favourite themes. Venice indeed gave him culture, it was Venice atmosphere that fed his eye with colour ; Venetian splendour that made his art so courtly ; but the double source of his inspiration must not be lost sight of, and after a preliminary glance at Titian in his Venice home, our principal object in these pages will be to follow him to his native mountains, and view him in their midst — their central figure, their great illustrator, Cadore's greatest son.

Although Titian's house has been identified, do not expect to find it easily. If you have no better fortune than myself, you will, after giving your gondolier a deal of trouble to find that part of the parish of S. Canciano called ' Biri,' and still more that part of Biri called ' Campo Tiziano,' discover a narrow court, lined B TITIAN 'S HOUSE IN VENICE. 4 by small new-looking houses on one side, and closed at the end by a garden door, bearing the number you are in quest of, 5,526. The neighbours will tell you that the row of houses is Titian's house ; and if you insist upon expecting better things behind the garden door, your pertinacious ringing will probably only bring a furtive head or two to a window, and it will be whispered that the signora there does not like visitors. If then you work round by the sea, and try the other side, you will only reach a dead wall en closing the garden, and be told the house no longer exists !

That mysterious door ! Yet we are not without means of knowing something of what was, and is, behind it. In a lithograph accompanying the work above alluded to by the Abbate G. Cadorin, published in Venice in 1833,* we have apparently exactly what we want, and may suppose ourselves introduced into the garden itself, and standing opposite the end of the afore-mentioned small row of houses, against which a flight of steps leading up to a kind of loggia or balcony forms the entrance to that portion of the building occupied by Titian. Let any one enter there who can ; but if he cannot, let him — as I did upon a subsequent visit, when the answer to be obtained at No. 5,526 was, that they were particularly occupied that day — let him, I say, subsidize a friendly artizan in one of the tall houses overlooking the garden wall.

The view from this * ' Dello Amore ai Veneziani di Tiziano Vecellio.' PRESENT CONDITION. 5 man's window will discover that the house and garden are indeed identical with the sketch in Cadorin, but that the loggia and flight of steps have been removed, and that probably nothing that was familiar to the eye of the great painter is now visible, excepting the stone cornice, which, running round the house, and continued all the length of the row of houses, shows that it was formerly one habitation, the upper story of which formed the roomy studio of Titian. Since his time, too, the prospect that once extended far over sea and land has been hopelessly blocked out by a pile of buildings, of which our artizan's dwelling is one, erected between the garden and the shore, if not cover ing great part of the garden itself, which must, from the descriptions, have been rather extensive, and once certainly reached to the water's edge.

Zanetti's state ment that the round-leafed tree in the Peter Martyr grew in a small court of this house is interesting, but of doubtful authority, since it is uncertain whether that famous picture was not painted some years before he occupied these premises. It is supported, however, by Ridolfi's assertion, that the mountains in that picture are those of Ceneda, which Titian saw from this spot. The history of Titian's connection with the house appears to be this. Born in 1477, he arrived in Venice from his native mountains in his tenth year, conducted by an uncle, a resident in the city, and became the pupil successively of Zuccati and the two Bellini. It is probable that for some years he lived with TITIAN S HOUSE IN VENICE. 6 this uncle, and it has been supposed that afterwards he took up his abode more or less in the Barbarigo palace.

But no proof exists for either supposition ; and it is not till the year 1531, when he was fifty-four, that his place of residence is clearly marked. A similar obscurity strangely enough attaches to the earlier portion of his art life, for not till he had at tained the maturity of his powers does he seem to have attracted contemporary notice. From the year 1531, however, and onward, all accounts speak of him as inhabiting the house which now bears his name ; identifying it either by its situation, as opposite the island of Murano, and with a view over the lagune, or by its precise locality in the parish of San Canciano — that portion of it termed the ' Biri Grande.' Upon this latter point the most satis factory testimony is that of the direction of a letter addressed to Titian by his son Orazio, then absent in Milan.

These are among the facts brought to light by the industry of the Ab. Cadorin, which, with the documents he prints, establish the matter beyond dispute. By these we learn that the house in question was erected in 1527 by Alviso Polani, upon some previously marshy ground opposite Murano ; and that he called it ' Casa Grande,' as much it seems to distinguish it from other property of his in the neighbourhood, as on account of the large and commodious rooms it possessed on the upper floor. Polani died soon after, and HISTORY OF THE HOUSE. 7 Titian first appears in 1 53 1 , hiring from the executors for an annual rent of forty ducats that upper floor, approached as it was by a separate entrance up the steps from the garden. This contract was renewed every year or two, while after some time, to prevent the ground-floor from being occupied by inconvenient, or it might almost seem disreputable tenants, he rented that also, letting it out to tenants of his own.

The next date that occurs is 1 549, when, evidently a man of wealth and hospitable ways, he added to his holding all the vacant land about, planting it with trees, and laying it out as an ornamental garden for the entertainment of his friends. Four years later the docu ments relating to this were confirmed, and in 1571 we find that Titian held a mortgage upon the whole estate, which, probably by foreclosure, ensured its con tinued possession, so that with his other property it passed upon his death in 1576 to his son Pomponio. In that son's worthless hands it did not long remain. The paternal estates were speedily squandered, and in 1 581 the Casa Grande was sold to Cristoforo Barbarigo, who was fortunate enough to meet immediately with a worthy tenant in the painter Francesco da Ponte, a son of the more celebrated Bassano, but well reputed in his day, and of whom it is pleasant to think as sustaining the artistic associations of the house.

To him, along with others of greater name, were entrusted works still extant in the Ducal Palace, and amongst these it concerns us to note a ' Battle of Cadore,' evidently replacing, though with less importance as to size and situation, the great picture by Titian then recently destroyed, and of which, when we reach Cadore, we shall have more to say. This Francesco, who seems to have been of a pure and simple nature, came to an unfortunate end in the midst of his days. Oppressed with melancholy, and haunted with the idea that the ' sbirri ' were in search of him, he was so terrified one day by a sudden knocking at the door, (our identical garden-door ?) that he leaped from his window into the garden, and falling on his head died presently of the injury ; thus darkening a pleasant spot with a sad memory.

This occurred in 1594- Still in the succession of art, the premises next be came the residence of Leonardo Corona of Murano, a student of the works of Titian, who in his youth had made so excellent a copy of the ' Battle of Cadore' that at Verona, where it was sent, it was afterwards supposed to be an original. To him, however, as to his predecessor, the garden of Titian became a fatal spot, but in another manner. Reviving the festivities of which, with a much more famous circle of guests, it had so often been the scene, he died of a fever brought on by a debauch there in 1605, at the age of forty four. His was the last reputation connected with those walls and walks. A natural son of Barbario-o into herited the property. A Roman merchant acquired it in right of his wife. The noble family of the TENANTS AND OWNERS. 9 Berlendis purchased it in 1674, and with them it remained 136 years.

Then undistinguished names succeed ; the last legal document connected with it quoted by Cadorin, (Titian's being the first,) is dated November 11, 1826. Cadorin reports the remains of frescoes on the west front, but to which of the three painters who had lived in the house they were to be attributed it was im possible to say. They have since disappeared. Some sixty years ago also there existed round the cornice of the principal chamber a charming series of dancing cupids painted upon canvas. These, by the then tenant, were whitewashed over, but made aware that he had covered something of value, he tore down the canvas, steeped it in water to remove the wash, and sold it to some now unknown purchaser. This chamber, still of good dimensions and originally lofty, and spacious enough to receive the largest pictures, had been partitioned off for the convenience of ordinary tenants.

Outside, as already mentioned, the erection from time to time of buildings between it and the sea destroyed the beautiful view of Murano, and the distant mountains ; while on the southern side four small houses, built in 1675, contributed to deprive the premises of air and light. Such have been the fortunes of the ' Casa Vecel liana.' Let us now return to the days of its glory, when it received under its roof some of the most renowned personages of history. Titian's wife Cecilia, Lucia, or whoever she might be — wife at any rate, notwithstanding recent scepticism *— died, probably in child-birth, the year before his removal to the house in 1531. But he brought thither three children : Pomponio, six years old ; Orazio younger, but the date of whose birth is not exactly known ; and an infant daughter, Lavinia, who was born, it is supposed, shortly before the death of her mother.

For many years Titian's excellent sister, Orsola, was at the head of his household. She had returned with him from her father's house in Cadore, whither he had gone with his children after the death of his wife, and she lived ever afterwards with him at Venice — ' sister, daughter, mother, companion, and steward of his household ' (so Aretino described her). She died in 1550, and thus saw all his children arrive at mature years. Lavinia, beautiful as several portraits by her father's loving hand show her to have been, and of whom he was passionately fond, married at the age of twenty four a gentleman of Serravalle, and had six children, but died like her mother at the birth of the last. This sorrowful event Titian is believed to have commemo rated in a picture representing his daughter in the condition of approaching maternity, himself sitting at * Upon this and other disputed points, I follow Cadorin as a patient and careful investigator ; but the forthcoming volumes of Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle's, ' New Vasari,' may be expected to throw fresh and important light upon many obscurities in the life of Titian .

TITIAN'S FAMILY CLRCLE. 11 her side, and in the corner a skull. With her, and with his sister, must have departed much of the light and comfort of Titian's domestic life at the Casa Grande, except so far as the care of Orazio could supply their loss. This favourite son of the painter lived much with his father, travelled with him on his various journeys, became his man of business and factotum, looked after the country properties at Cadore and Conegliano, and took part in the timber trade between Cadore and Venice. Of a mechanical turn, he invented a new sort of flour-mill, with probably the usual fate of inventors. Some say he dabbled in alchemy, with what success we may still more safely say. Originally, he had studied his father's art, and he practised it indeed with some success all his life, though evidently much diverted from its pur suit by his various avocations.

He married in 1547, but still lived chiefly with his father, and left no children. As for Pomponio, the eldest, though an ecclesiastic, for which profession he was destined from early years, he never performed clerical duties ; nor, although once offered a bishopric, which his father knowings his graceless character would not allow him to accept, did he ever attain to higher preferment than that of a canonry at Milan. He had no fixed residence, and was most likely as much at home in the Casa Grande as anywhere ; living the gay dissipated life of such a cleric then, and no doubt a sufficient cause of trouble to that industrious household. TLTLAN'S HOUSE IN VENICE. 12 For industrious it was. Titian himself was a miracle of diligence, and continued so to the extreme limit of his life ; always with his brush, his chalk, or his char coal in hand ; recording some conception, or noting some aspect of nature, or elaborating some great work.

Many of his most renowned pictures went from this house: such as the Ecce Homo at Vienna, the ' Paradise ' and the ' Last Supper ' at Madrid, and the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence ; while for its biographical interest may be noted that picture of the Magdalen for Philip of Spain, studied from a neighbour's daughter, upon which he was once so much absorbed that the poor girl, exhausted by the long constraint, burst into tears ; unluckily the incident was so appropriate to the subject that, far from shortening, it only prolonged the sitting, while the ruthless old painter, going himself without his dinner, transferred it to his canvas. It is amusing to see how characteristically in the letter accompanying the picture he made use of the circum stance. ' I add,' he says, ' my tears to hers, that my pension may be paid.' But Titian was not the only worker.

His brother Francesco, an artist almost equal to himself, had lived and painted with him much in his earlier years ; and then, after soldiering for a while with distinction, had betaken himself to Cadore, and its everlasting timber trade. Yet winter found him generally in the Casa Grande, an addition, if only now as an amateur, to that company of artist relatives of which Titian's son SCHOLARS IN THE HOUSE. 13 Orazio, a second cousin Marco, Girolamo Tiziano, per haps a son (employed in drawing from models), and Cesare Vecellio, a distant kinsman, were the principal members. All these were more or less resident under his roof; but there were, besides, numerous scholars, who after the custom of the time studied under and assisted the great master, many of them great them selves in their day.

Tintoretto, Bordone, Campagnola, the elder Bassano, Bonvicino, Bonifaccio, Moretto, the Palmas — or at least Palma the younger, and many others of less name, passed through his studio ; but of these some, such as Campagnola and Tintoretto, were of an earlier date than that of his residence in the Casa Grande. It is pretty certain, however, that to this latter period belonged the influx of foreign students, of whom the three brothers Schwarz from Germany, and the Fleming Calcar, are specially men tioned. Those German landscape painters, of whom Vasari speaks as living in Titian's house, were not perhaps inmates of this particular residence. We may be more certain of the engravers that worked under his roof, and copied his works. This is settled by the dates. Cornelius Corte, a Flemish engraver on copper, joined him in 1570; but as early as 1549 Domenico delle Greche cut in wood under his inspec tion that ' Destruction of Pharaoh ' of which he had furnished the design.

Thus the place was almost an art-factory, and in a sense not to be commended, if the anecdote be true that Titian, on leaving his studio, was accustomed to place the key where it was accessible to his scholars, and winked at their making copies, which he after wards retouched and sold as his own. We must be sorry to believe this of the grand old man ; but along with a certain generosity in expenditure, there appears a strong disposition to make the most, in a pecuniary sense, of his great genius. His reputed jealousy of other artists seems disproved by well-attested in stances of hearty commendation ; but he might not be insensible to competition in a business point of view, and a strong business habit seems to have been a decided characteristic of his long life. Might not this ' mountain man ' have been something of a ' canny Scot,' or a shrewd Swiss, in these matters ?