The great master of northern Italian Renaissance painting was Tiziano Vecellio, better known as Titian and thought to be born in 1487. He apprenticed to the master Gentile Bellini, and after studying with him finally became the student of the Venetian master Giorgione. Titian was enormously influenced by the latter and it is often hard to tell which work is a Giorgione and which is a Titian. After the death of Giorgione, Titian left Venice for work in Padua, upon his return he was named the heir and master to him. Titian began extensive commissions with various churches, and eventually would cater to both princes and popes alike.

Titian worked in oil, the preferred medium for the humid climate of Venice. There he perfected the medium and produced both religious and mythological themes as well as portraits.

Titians use of rich, deep colors and precise linear style would eventually give way to a looser, less restrained and more flowing style. His brush strokes became more apparent and he varied his pallette subtly merging his colors .

After painting two portraits of Emperor Charles V, Titian was appointed court painter to the Holy Roman Empire in 1533. He received the title of Citizen of Rome in 1546 and it was then that Titian made his only visit to Rome, where he was deeply impressed with the modern works of Michelangelo, but also with the remains of antiquity.

During the last years of his life Titian was commissioned to paint more and more court portraits for Charles V and his son Phillip II. Phillip so admired him that for the remainder of the artists life Phillip was his most constant patron, commissioning both religious paintings and erotic mythological compositions ("Danae", "Perseus and Andromeda", "Venus and Adonis", "The Rape of Europa", "Diana and Acteon").