Episode Details

Titian dominated Venetian painting for over sixty years, outlived every rival, and managed his career with the business instincts of a modern CEO. He courted popes, emperors, and kings, negotiated his fees with unapologetic aggression, and produced masterpieces on demand while running a workshop that functioned as a commercial empire.

This episode traces Titian from his arrival in Venice as a boy through his rivalry with Tintoretto, his decades as painter to Charles V and Philip II, and the late style that influenced every colorist who followed.

• He served as the official painter to both Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and King Philip II of Spain
• Charles V reportedly bent down to pick up a brush Titian had dropped, an unprecedented gesture of respect from an emperor to an artist
• His late paintings, with their loose brushwork and dissolving forms, anticipated impressionism by three centuries
• He lived into his late eighties and remained productive until his death from plague in 1576