Charles Hope Publishes Definitive Six-Volume Corpus on Titian After 50 Years

After half a century of research, British scholar Charles Hope has published the monumental six-volume work 'Tiziano: Fonti e Documenti' (Titian: Sources and Documents), presented on July 25, 2022, in Pieve di Cadore, Titian's birthplace. The publication, released by London-based Ad Ilissvm in association with The Burlington Magazine, assembles over 2,900 documents spanning the artist's life, including letters, contracts, and inscriptions, many previously unpublished or misattributed. Hope, former director of the Warburg Institute (2002–2010) and professor at Oxford University, began his research with a 1972 thesis on Titian's correspondence. The corpus covers not only Titian's own writings but also those of his family, assistants, and contemporaries, as well as forgeries produced over the last two centuries. Hope developed expertise in calligraphy to distinguish authentic documents from fakes, and he casts doubt on texts attributed to Pietro Aretino and even on Vasari's biography of Titian in 'Le Vite', which he considers apocryphal. Previous attempts at a comprehensive Titian corpus were made by Crowe and Cavalcaselle in 1877 and Adolfo Venturi in 1928, but both included only a fraction of the material now assembled. The work is intended for art historians, collectors, and dealers, and is priced at €550 (pre-order €450).