Tiziano Vecellio, born in Cadore in the Dolomites. The earliest sources do not agree on his age; the alleged register of his death in August 1576 gave his age as 103. He studied in Venice with the Bellini and Giorgione (d. 1510). His Assunta, painted for the church of S. Maria dei Frari, Venice, in 1516-18 established his reputation and thereafter he worked in Venice not only for the princely families of the Veneto, but for the most eminent patrons of Europe, notably the Spanish Habsburgs.

In the course of his long life his style evolved from a Giorgionesque idiom (Venus and Cupid) to an extraordinarily rich, imaginative vision which has remained without compare in the history of art. He died in Venice on 27 August 1576, perhaps of the plague.