Polyptyque Averoldi

By 1522 Titian was the official painter of the Venetian Republic, so the commission he took from Altobello Averoldi, a papal legate, came with an old-fashioned string attached. Averoldi wanted a polyptych, the picture split into separate compartments in a manner already going out of style. Titian obeyed the format but filled it with new energy. The Resurrection rises in the centre, and in the lower right a Saint Sebastian twists his body in a pose that looks straight back to Michelangelo and to the antique statues Titian had studied. He was proud enough of that figure to sign the work on the column beside it, dating it 1522.