In the spring of 1993, the most discussed, most not-to-be-missed exhibition in Paris was an extravaganza at the Grand Palais, “The Century of Titian: The Golden Age of Painting in Venice.” It was a glorious assembly of pictures not only by Titian, but by his predecessors, contemporaries, colleagues, and followers—Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Sebastiano del Piombo, Veronese, Bassano, and Tintoretto, among others. Despite its ambitious title, its stellar array of artists, and its astonishing number of visitors, the show was neither a wide-ranging survey of High Renaissance art in La Serenissima nor a crowd-pleasing blockbuster, but rather a tightly focused, scholarly examination of a particular aspect of sixteenth-century Venetian painting during the years, roughly, in which Titian was at work. What was that aspect? How Venetian painters responded to the maniera moderna, the “modern style” that was proposed by Giorgione’s innovative art at the beginning of the century and developed by the younger, far-longer-lived Titian as the 1500s progressed. To demonstrate their thesis, the curators of the exhibition marshalled some of the most celebrated paintings of the period, but equally important were pictures by less-familiar practitioners, painters not exactly obscure, but probably better known to art historians than to most of the eager viewers of “The Century of Titian.” Some of these were lesser talents who had obviously profited a great deal from the example of their more brilliant fellows, but among this “supporting cast” there were happy surprises—works by artists who, while admittedly not up to the level