Between 1545 and 1546, Titian spent eight months in Rome at the court of Paul III Farnese. With a studio in the Belvedere and Giorgio Vasari as his cicerone, Titian's time in the papal city was characterized by unparalleled access to the best of both the ancient and contemporary worlds. Here he unveiled the Naples Danaë, a work that hinted at the insistent materiality which would become a hallmark of the artist’s late style. Instead of leaving this period as a footnote to the lengthy career of this most “Venetian” of painters, Michelle DiMarzo's work repositions Titian’s Roman journey as a lens onto his activity in the crucial decade of 1540s, which, both on canvas and off, was a period of significant tension and change.

DiMarzo is the Phyllis G. Gordan/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize Fellow (year two of a two-year fellowship) in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the American Academy Rome and is a PhD candidate in the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.