Orazio Vecellio
1525–1576 · Republic of Venice · Renaissance, Venetian school
The story
In 1559 Titian sent his son Orazio to Milan to collect money owed to the old painter, pensions of about 2,900 ducats from the emperor Charles V that had gone unpaid. Orazio stayed in the house of the sculptor Leone Leoni, who worked for the same Habsburg court, and there he was attacked and badly wounded. The family held Leoni responsible, and the affair runs through the letters between Titian and King Philip II of Spain.
That errand shows where Orazio stood. He was Titian's son, pupil and business agent, and he spent his working life inside his father's studio in Venice. His portraits were once thought close to his father's in quality, and he painted at least one large history scene for the Doge's Palace, lost when fire swept the building in 1577. Later he is said to have neglected painting for alchemy.
In the summer of 1576 plague reached Venice. Titian died that August, and Orazio caught the disease and died a short time after him.
