Giorgione (Giorgio de Castelfranco). Portrait of a Man (‘Terris Portrait’), 1506. Oil on panel. The San Diego Museum of Art. Gift of Anne R. and Amy Putnam. 1941.100. During the late Renaissance, Venice replaced Florence as Italy’s most celebrated art capital. “In the Age of Giorgione” at London’s Royal Academy of Arts explores how this came about thanks to two local talents, Giorgione and Titian (March 12 to June 5). Organized thematically, the focused survey begins with two galleries of portraits, followed by landscapes and religious paintings. Rare masterpieces by Giorgione are displayed alongside early works by his younger colleague and rival Titian, and two paintings by their teacher, Giovanni Bellini. After Giorgione’s untimely death, it was Titian who put Venice on the map. In his Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari describes Giorgione as “extremely fond of the lute” and “a very amorous man.” Little else is known about this enigmatic figure, whose life was Read More