Тития

The giant on the rock is Tityus, who in Greek myth assaulted a goddess and was condemned to lie chained in the underworld while a vulture tore at his liver, which grew back each day so the torment never ended. Titian first painted him around 1548 for Mary of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands, as one of four punished sinners. She meant them as a warning. Her brother, the emperor Charles the Fifth, was then locked in conflict with rebellious Protestant princes in Germany, and these damned giants stood in for anyone who defied imperial power. This canvas is Titian's own later repetition of that idea, made around 1565, when he was an old man handling paint ever more loosely. The vulture's wing spreads dark across the whole upper half of the scene.