The latest issue of Print Quarterly (vol. XXIX, no. 2) features an article by yours truly on the Titian’s woodcut St. Roch (above). I went full retard on this, getting my fingers dirty in the Venetian State Archive and such. You should check it out.
Here’s the opening paragraph:
Titian’s designs for woodcuts of the early decades of the sixteenth century are remarkably varied in terms of subject, composition and purpose. The large St Roch is an interesting case for it was published with the insignia of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice. The artist is recorded among the chapter brethren of this institution in 1528 and may well already have been a member there when he executed the design. The woodcut was evidently made to help raise funds for the construction of the Scuola’s new headquarters — a rare early surviving example of a devotional print produced for the purpose of institutional promotion. Although its composite design and blend of image and text make it unique in Titian’s graphic oeuvre, it has received less scrutiny than his other woodcuts. This article considers the available evidence in an attempt to elucidate the particulars of its creation and iconography, proposing an earlier date than the traditional one and inserting it into the context of Titian’s engagement with the heroic male figure in his work of the late 1510s.