ABSTRACT
The year 1510 constituted a fateful moment in the history of Venetian art. In that year, aged about thirty-four, the painter Giorgione died in Venice. Giorgione and his equally gifted near-contemporaries, Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo, had all studied with Giovanni Bellini. Bellini and his painter brother Gentile had, in turn, learned their art in the family workshop headed by their father, Jacopo. Bellini's influence was also felt by a number of more minor, but still highly talented artists whose conceptions of style and subject depended on his earlier works. Sebastiano's change of residence in 1511 was motivated by his desire to work in the city which was to become the only serious rival of Venice for most of the sixteenth century: Rome. The achievements of Venetian Renaissance painters provided an important base for the artists of Baroque Rome. Admiration for the famous Venetians continued unabated during the eighteenth century.
