The hidden signatures of Titian

Abstract

The type and frequency of artists’ signatures generally varied among Italian Renaissance painters. The artists’ names appeared in fictively carved inscriptions in stone, in handwritten notes fictively appended to the surfaces of the paintings or placed somewhere within the represented scenes, and in the borders of the picture frames. The interpretations given to these early modern signatures by art historians have been somewhat less diverse, however, and, despite slight nuances, most fall under the general category of self-referential statements of artistic authority. But these interpretations overlook the internally divided agency demonstrated by some of the signatures executed by the sixteenth-century Venetian painter Titian, several of which are difficult to find; these signatures simultaneously fail to demand our attention and figure their own vulnerability. This article will situate Titian’s furtive signatures within the complex social dynamic of early modern courts, while at the same time considering how his signatures engage with early modern conceptions of the rich textuality—the indeterminacy—of signatures and proper names.