Felipe II ofreciendo al infante don Fernando al cielo

Two things happened within weeks of each other in the autumn of 1571, and to Philip II's court they looked like heaven answering twice. In October a Christian fleet smashed the Ottoman navy at Lepanto; in December the king's long-awaited heir, Fernando, was born. Titian, by now in his eighties in Venice, folded both into a single act of thanks. Philip lifts the naked infant toward an angel swooping down with a banner reading Maiora tibi, greater things await you, while the sea battle smoulders in the distance and a bound Turkish captive sits among the spoils. The greater things never came. The boy Fernando died before his seventh birthday, in 1578.