1488-9

Updated: May 15, 2025

This phrase could hardly be applied to a man over thirty, so that Titian's birth cannot reasonably be dated before 1486 or so, and is much more likely to fall later. The previous deduction that it was 1488-9 is thus further strengthened. The evidence, then, of Dolce, writing in 1557, is clear and consistent: Titian was born in 1488-9.

Herbert Cook - Giorgione

Fortunately, the exact date can be fixed when the frescoes on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi were painted, for we have original records preserved from which we learn the work was begun in 1507 and completed towards the close of 1508. If Titian, then, was "scarcely twenty years old" in 1507-8, he must have been born in 1488-9.

Herbert Cook - Giorgione