VENICE, in 1496 when Titian came there to study painting, was the richest seaport in Italy. Ships from everywhere filled her harbors; palaces of marble lace, churches bright with mosaics lined her canals; and great artists were commissioned by the doges and the wealthy Venetians to paint pictures to fill the halls and hang above altars in these buildings.

Even though in the course of his long life Titian travelled to other parts of Italy and Europe—Rome, Padua, Mantua, Milan, Augsburg—it was to Venice he returned and in Venice that he owned a home and painted most of the brilliant, glowing pictures that won him fame all over Europe. Kings, emperors, cardinals, popes and dukes commissioned from him portraits and paintings of religious and classical subjects. Like a true artist of the Renaissance, Titian's production was prodigious and varied and vibrant.

Following the plan of her other successful biographies, Elizabeth Ripley has given young readers another living portrait of a great artist.

From the dust jacket