.. fece il suo ritratto ...; ed un quadro di Ecce Homo,
..." and he goes on, "L'anno poi 1507...." If it had not been that one
of these pictures, once in the possession of Giovanni D'Anna, had been
preserved (now in the Vienna Gallery), and that it bears in a
conspicuous place the date 1543, it would be recorded in all biographies
of Titian that he painted in 1507 an "Ecce Homo" for this Giovanni
D'Anna.
If one goes further into Vasari's account we read that Titian published
his "Triumph of Faith" in 1508. "Dopo condottosi Tiziano a Vicenza,
dipinse a fresco sotto la loggetta ... il giudizio di Salamone. Appresso
tomato a Venezia, dipinse la facciata de' Grimani; e in Padoa nella
chiesa di Sant' Antonio alcune storie ... de fatti di quel santo: e in
quella di Santo Spirito fece ... un San Marco a sedere in mezzo a certi
Santi." We now know on documentary evidence that the Vicenza fresco
(which was destroyed later) dated from 1521, and similarly that the
frescoes at Padua were painted in 1511, whilst the date of the S. Mark
picture may be fixed with probability at 1504.
These examples prove how inexact Vasari is here once more. But it may be
objected, supposing that he is inaccurate in statements which refer
back, can he not be in the right in a case where he comes back, so to
speak, straight from visiting Titian and writes down his observation
about the master's actual age? To be sure; but when we find that so many
other similar notices of Vasari are wrong, even those that refer to
people whom he personally knew, we lose faith altogether.
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