In spring 1566, Giorgio Vasari saw a mythological painting in Titian’s Venetian workshop with a "giovane ignuda, che s’inchina a Minerva, con un’altra figura accanto, ed un mare, dove nel lontano è Nettuno in mezo sopra il suo carro." It was commissioned by Alfonso I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, who died before it was completed. Over thirty years later, Titian returned to it, transforming the i