Tiziano Vecellio
No one is sure of the exact date of Titian's birth; when he was an old man he claimed to have been born in 1477 in a letter to Philip II, but this seems most unlikely. Other writers contemporary to his old age give figures for his age which would equate to birth-dates between 1473 to after 1482, but most modern scholars believe a date nearer 1490 is more likely. He was the eldest of a family of four and son of Gregorio Vecelli, a distinguished councillor and soldier, and of his wife Lucia. His father was superintendent of the castle of Pieve di Cadore and also managed local mines for their owners. Many relatives, including Titian's grandfather, were notaries, and the family were well-established in the area, which was ruled by Venice.
At the age of about ten to twelve he and his brother Francesco (who perhaps followed later) were sent to an uncle in Venice to find an apprenticeship with a painter. The minor painter, Sebastian Zuccato, whose sons became well-known mosaicists, and who may have been a family friend, arranged for the brothers to enter the studio of the elderly Gentile Bellini, from which they later transferred to that of his brother Giovanni Bellini. At that time the Bellinis, especially Giovanni, were the leading artists in the city. There he found a group of young men about his own age, among them Giovanni Palma da Serinalta, Lorenzo Lotto, Sebastiano Luciani, and Giorgio da Castelfranco, nicknamed Giorgione. Francesco Vecellio, his younger brother, later became a painter of some note in Venice.