Frieze of the Liberal and Mechanical Arts

High on the walls of a house in Castelfranco Veneto, just under the ceiling, runs a painted band crowded with objects. On one side stand the tools of learning, books, musical and measuring instruments. On the other, armour and the gear of the mechanical trades, with small portrait medallions set between them. The house is named for Giorgione, the town's most famous son, and for a long time the frieze carried his name too. Scholars who look closely have never quite agreed. More than one hand seems to be at work, and some find little of Giorgione here at all, while others still catch him in the medallions. Even the date stays open, argued somewhere around 1500, when this painter would have been barely into his twenties.