Not far from his home lives Catherine of
Cornara, formerly Queen of Cyprus; and, up in the towers which still
remain, Tuzio Costanzo, the famous condottiere--a picturesque remnant of
medieval manners, amid a civilisation rapidly changing. Giorgione paints
their portraits; and when Tuzio's son, Matteo, dies in early youth,
adorns in his memory a chapel in the church of Castelfranco, painting on
this occasion, perhaps, the altar-piece, foremost among his authentic
works, still to be seen there, with the figure of the warrior-saint,
Liberale, of which the original little study in oil, with the delicately
gleaming, silver-grey armour, is one of the greater treasures of the
National Gallery, and in which, as in some other knightly personages
attributed to him, people have supposed the likeness of his own
presumably gracious presence. Thither, at last, he is himself brought
home from Venice, early dead, but celebrated. It happened, about his
thirty-fourth year, that in one of those parties at which he entertained
his friends with music, he met a certain lady of whom he became greatly
enamoured, and "they rejoiced greatly," says Vasari, "the one and the
other, in their loves.
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