Daniele Barbaro: A Venetian Patron
Scholar, humanist, aristocrat, Barbaro achieved distinction in many fields, and served the Venetian Republic well, as Alan Haynes records.
There is a mysterious poignancy in the life of Daniele Barbaro (1513-70) that only Titian came near to seeing and rendering in paint. Two fine portraits are extant, one now in Ottawa and the other in Madrid, and both were painted when Barbaro was thirty-two.
In the Ottawa painting, which went to Paolo Giovio and was highly praised by Pietro Aretino, Barbaro appears relaxed, almost on the brink of a smile: Titian’s lightening of the upper cheek - it appears to have less bone in it - softens the withdrawn ascetic appearance that is so marked in the Prado version.
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