Tiziano Vecellio, painter of portraits as well as mythological, historical and religious subjects, was born in the mountains of the eastern Dolomites at Pieve di Cadore, died in Venice on 27 August 1576 at an advanced age (suggestions range from 86 to 103), and was buried in the Church of the Frari in Venice. According to Vasari he studied with Giovanni Bellini, but as a young man was influenced by Giorgione towards 'more softness and greater relief', and went on to decorate 'Venice, or rather all of Italy and other parts of the world, with superb painting'( Vasari, Le Vite, Testo VI.155). His reputation has always been high and he worked at the highest level of society, for, among many others, the Emperor Charles V, Philip II of Spain, and Pope Paul III.
In the debate between the Florentine and Venetian schools, the Venetians, with Titian seen as the greatest of them, were famous for colour (colore/colorire) and for the representation of the diversity of nature as it appeared to the eye. The Romans and Florentines - particularly Michelangelo and Raphael in his later work - were famous for form (disegno) and the insights into form provided by the study of ancient art, for example the study by Michelangelo of the Torso of the Vatican. Kugler, ed. Eastlake, Handbook of the History of Painting, Part One, The Italian Schools, First Edition, on Titian follows the same pattern, but adds another dimension with a reference to Titian's 'liberation of art from the bonds of ecclesiastical dogma'.
Ruskin's references to Titian in Modern Painters I are ambivalent, as are Ruskin's later assessments of Titian. See Ruskin and the Italian School.