Der Bravo

A bravo, in Renaissance Italy, was a hired killer, and this small, dark picture catches one at work. Two men press close in the shadow. On the left a young blond man with a wreath of vine leaves turns toward his attacker, whose face we never see, only a profile lost in deep shade. It was painted in Venice around 1520, when Titian was still a young man making his name. Even the authorship carried some of the intrigue of the scene. Over the centuries it was given at times to Giorgione and to Palma Vecchio, and its firm attribution to Titian owes a lot to the art historian Roberto Longhi in the 20th century, which is where scholarship has mostly settled. The whole drama is squeezed into the grip of one hand on a shoulder, the instant before whatever happens next.