智慧

By 1560 Venice was finishing one of the proudest buildings on its main square, a public library built to hold the Greek and Latin manuscripts the city had been given, standing right across from the Doge's Palace. Its architect, Jacopo Sansovino, turned to his old friend Titian, then in his seventies and the most sought-after painter in Europe, to paint the ceiling of the entrance hall. Titian gave them this eight-sided canvas: a single seated woman with a book, standing for Wisdom herself, the very thing the building was raised to house. It sits directly overhead as you come in, so she looks down on everyone arriving for the books. Candle smoke and soot later darkened her almost past seeing, until a cleaning in the 1980s brought the colour up again.