Room With a View : A timely new exhibit at London's National Gallery reveals Titian in all his Renaissance splendor.

The magnificent 16th-century court of the dukes of Ferrara near Venice attracted some of the most gifted artists and writers of the Renaissance. Deep inside the castle, a secret chamber housed one of the world's most prized collections of paintings from that period. But the exact location of that chamber remained a mystery to modern art historians--until last week, when architect Marco Borella, hacking through the 14th-century castle, located one of its walls. Borella, who had already identified the room's marble floor, made his latest discovery at a particularly auspicious time: London's National Gallery has just opened a new exhibit of works by Titian, a regular at the Ferrara court and perhaps the most beloved artist of the Italian Renaissance. What's more, the centerpiece of the show is a re- creation of that very chamber, known as the camerino, or little room.

No wonder the exhibit's curators received the news with such glee. Until now, Duke Alfonso d'Este's private art gallery was known primarily through letters, and curators had only a hazy idea of what it would have looked like. When the d'Este family lost Ferrara to the pope in 1589, their paintings were removed to Rome and eventually dispersed to Madrid, London and Washington, D.C. "Titian" (through May 18) reunites for the first time in 400 years many of their works, including the four huge mythological paintings from Alfonso's camerino. Titian's extraordinary talent is apparent in the contrast between the three that he painted and the one by Giovanni Bellini, his tutor. In Bellini's "Feast of the Gods," the figures remain static and unemotional. But in Titian's own "The Andrians," a passionate, wine-fueled celebration leaps off the canvas. And in "Bacchus and Ariadne," the bright red shawl that twists around Ariadne's body seems to anticipate Bacchus' embrace, foreshadowed in his lascivious gaze as he lunges from his chariot.

Only by viewing these works side by side is it possible to appreciate how they play off one another. A burly man bearing an amphora of wine seems to walk out of "The Andrians" and straight into "Bacchus and Ariadne," hanging to its left. A cherub in "The Worship of Venus" directly across the wall from Ariadne aims his arrow at her. "You flow in and out of the paintings; they ...