Portrait of Pietro Aretino

In 1527 the writer Pietro Aretino arrived in Venice, and he arrived dangerous. His pen had already made him enemies in Rome, where an attacker left him stabbed in the chest and hands, and the Venetian republic became the base from which he spent the next 30 years flattering and threatening the powerful across Europe. This portrait dates from that first year, and it was almost at once given away. On June 22, 1527 it was sent to Federico Gonzaga, the Marquess of Mantua, as a gift. Aretino sat for the painter more than once, and over those decades the two became close friends. Who actually held the brush is still argued. The canvas has been assigned to Sebastiano del Piombo, to Moretto, to no one at all, and finally to Titian, the name it carries now. It has spent recent years in storage in Basel, its surface dulled by old varnish and later repaint.