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The theme of this book traces this history as the painting has moved in succession from Venice to Spain, France, England and the United States, reflecting the rise and fall of the various nations. The Rape of Europa was originally painted in Titian’s studio in Venice in the early 1560s. This was a golden moment in Venetian painting, when Titian, the leading artist of the Venetian School, was at the height of his powers and the most sought after artist in all Europe. Venice herself, however, had entered a period of decline as her trading monopoly in the Mediterranean was increasingly affected by wars with the Ottoman Empire and new trade routes to India and the Americas.

Venice herself, however, had entered a period of decline as her trading monopoly in the Mediterranean was increasingly affected by wars with the Ottoman Empire and new trade routes to India and the Americas. Her place had been supplanted by Spain, mistress of a vast empire in the Americas and the Pacific, and it was the Spanish King Philip II who commissioned the Rape of Europa from Titian, as part of a series of mythological paintings, based on the Metamorphoses of Ovid. The painting was brought to Spain, where it was to reside in the private apartments of the Habsburg kings in the Alcázar in Madrid.

Considering his reaction at the sight of Danae, there is little doubt how Aretino would have behaved if he had been in the artist’s shoes: ‘My God, her neck! ’ Whatever the truth, all the evidence suggests that Titian was happily married to Cecilia, a barber’s daughter from his hometown of Cadore, who bore him two sons and two daughters, but she died very young in 1530. Thereafter his household was run by his sister Orsa. The painter certainly enjoyed an enviable lifestyle in his house in Venice.