腓力二世将费尔南多王子献给天堂

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.