"Late in his life Titian created a series of paintings - the 'Four Sinners', the 'poesie' for his patron Philip II of Spain, and the 'Final Tragedies' - that were dark in tone and content, full of pathos and physical suffering." "In this major reinterpretation of Titian's art, Thomas Puttfarken shows that the often dramatic and violent subject matter of these works was not, as is often argued, the consequence of the artist's increasing age and sense of isolation and tragedy. Rather, these paintings were influenced by discussions of Aristotle's Poetics that permeated learned discourse in Italy in the mid-sixteenth century."--Jacket.