From Toby Jurovics, a Titian, early 1500’s:
“Giorgio Cornaro with Falcon celebrates Giorgio Cornaro the Younger’s election into the Maggior Consiglio or the Great Council of Venice. “
I had never seen it, and wrote to Toby that I preferred it to the better- known Holbein of Sir Robert Cheseman with a Gyr. Henry 8’s courtiers were a cold and tight- lipped lot; I sometimes think his must have been a more opulent version of Stalin’s. We also agreed that the food must have been better in Venice.