We determined, therefore, to turn sharply eastward and make for Pordenone, in the hope of coming up with the fighting thereabouts.

When at last we moved on again, we found the road from Sacile to Pordenone pretty clear for several miles and were able to get up speed.

"Poverini!" said an Italian officer to whom we gave a lift into Pordenone, "they are all starving and we have little chance yet to bring them food.

" Pordenone was ours.

Vittorio Veneto, a name that will resound for ever, to the broken bridge over the Meduna, east of Pordenone, and the village of Nogaredo, whither I came as one of its first liberators.

There had been mention of Pordenone and of Aretino, with a certain cool scorn that was worse than censure, and as convincing, there was the Titian, than whom, in art and sumptuousness, one could not be greater; but, even for him, Cavalière of France, there was no place in the Consiglio!

Round these great men are grouped a host of secondary but distinguished paintersPalma with his golden-haired large-bosomed sirens; idyllic Bonifazio; dramatic Pordenone, whose frescoes are all motion and excitement; Paris Bordone, who mingled on his canvas cream and mulberry juice and sunbeams; the Robusti, the Caliari, the Bassani, and others whom it would be tedious to mention.

There is an example in a picture by Pordenone which once belonged to Canova.

Traditionally accredited to Pordenone, it has now received official recognition as a masterpiece of Giorgione, an attribution that, so far as I am aware, no one has seriously contested.

This is the secret of his overwhelming influence on succeeding painters in Venice,not, indeed, on his direct pupil Sebastiano del Piombo, and on his friend and associate Titian (who may fairly be called his pupil), but on such different natures as Lotto, Palma, Bonifazio, Bordone, Pordenone, Cariani, Romanino, Dosso Dossi, and a host of smaller men.