II. Admitting the identity of person, chronology
determines the probable date of the execution
of this portrait, for Prospero visited
Venice presumably in the train of Consalvo
Ferrante in 1500. He was then thirty-six
years of age.
III. Assuming this date to be correct, no other Venetian
artist but Giorgione was capable of producing
so fine and admittedly "Giorgionesque"
a portrait at so early a date.
IV. Internal evidence points to Giorgione's authorship.
It will be seen that the logic employed is identical with that by which
I have tried to establish the identity of Signor Crespi's picture. In
the present case, I should like to insist on the fourth consideration
rather than on the other points, iconographical or chronological, and
see how far our portrait bears on its face the impress of Giorgione's
own spirit.
The conception, to begin with, is characteristic of him--the pensive
charm, the feeling of reserve, the touch of fanciful imagination in the
decorative accessories, but, above all, the extreme refinement. All this
very naturally fits the portrait of a poet, and at a time when it was
customary to label every portrait with a celebrated name, what more
appropriate than Ariosto, the court poet of Ferrara? But this dreamy
reserve, this intensity of suppressed feeling is characteristic of all
Giorgione's male portraits, and is nowhere more splendidly expressed
than in this lovely figure.
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