GIORGIONE

CHAPTER I

GIORGIONE'S LIFE


Apart from tradition, very few ascertained facts are known to us as to
Giorgione's life. The date of his birth is conjectural, there being but
Vasari's unsupported testimony that he died in his thirty-fourth year.
Now we know from unimpeachable sources that his death happened in
October-November 1510,[1] so that, assuming Vasari's statement to be
correct, Giorgione will have been born in 1477.[2]

The question of his birthplace and origin has been in great dispute.
Without going into the evidence at length, we may accept with some
degree of certainty the results at which recent German research has
arrived.[3] Dr. Gronau's conclusion is that Giorgione was the son (or
grandson) of a certain Giovanni, called Giorgione of Castelfranco, who
came originally from the village of Vedelago in the march of Treviso.
This Giovanni was living at Castelfranco, of which he was a citizen, in
1460, and there, probably, Giorgione his son (or grandson) was born some
seventeen years later.

The tradition that the artist was a natural son of one of the great
Barbarella family, and that in consequence he was called Barbarelli, is
now shown to be false. This cognomen is first found in 1648, in
Ridolfi's book, to which, in 1697, the picturesque addition was made
that his mother was a peasant girl of Vedelago.[4] None of the earlier
writers or contemporary documents ever allude to such an origin, or