Focus on Flaying of Marsyas (Titian) and discuss the Description and subject.
The choice of such a violent scene was perhaps inspired by the death of Marcantonio Bragadin, the Venetian commander of Famagusta in Cyprus who was flayed by the Ottomans when the city fell in August 1571, causing enormous outrage in Venice.  Titian's composition is undoubtedly derived from that of Giulio Romano from several decades before (see "Visual sources" below).Both artists follow the account in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book 6, lines 382–400), which covers the contest very quickly, but describes the flaying scene at relative length, though with few indications that would help to visualize it. Marsyas cries out "Why do you tear me from myself?".Marsyas was a skillful player of the classical aulos or double flute, for which by Titian's time pan pipes were  usually substituted in art, and his set hangs from the tree over his head. Apollo played his usual lyre, which is here represented by a modern lira da braccio, an ancestor of the violin with up to seven strings.  This is played by a figure of uncertain identity, who some scholars have said to be Apollo himself, perhaps appearing a second time, since Apollo is clearly the figure wearing a laurel wreath who is kneeling down and using his knife to flay Marsyas' chest.  It has also been suggested that the musician is Orpheus, or Olympus, a devoted pupil of Marsyas, who Apollo later converts to playing the lyre, and Ovid mentions.  The mythical King Midas, the seated old man on the right, is often thought to be a self-portrait.  His downward line of gaze at Marsyas is parallel to that of the musician looking up to the heavens on the other side of the painting.
Ovid avoids the question of who the judges of the contest were. In most Greek accounts the Three Muses did the role, but the story early became confused with another, the "Judgement of Midas", which has happened here.  This was another musical contest, always with lyre versus pan pipes, but with Pan himself on the pipes.  Of course Apollo won, but in some accounts King Midas preferred Pan, and was given the ears of a donkey as punishment, while Pan was merely humiliated.  The seated figure at right wears a diadem and is Midas, though his ears seem unaffected.  The "Judgement of Midas" was also sometimes painted.  Both stories were set in Phrygia, in modern Turkey, where Midas ruled, which in the ancient world had various associations with music.  The Phrygians were not Greek, until Hellenized after Alexander the Great, but lived on the edge of the Greek world.  The human with the knife wears a Phrygian cap. Apollo is assisted by a sinister "Scythian" figure on the left, working on Marsyas' leg, and a satyr with a bucket behind Midas, perhaps to collect blood, or hold the removed skin, which in some versions of the story Apollo later had nailed up in a temple.  A small boy, or boy satyr, restrains a large dog at right, while a much smaller dog is lapping at the blood that has fallen to the ground.  As was typical in Titian's day, and especially in his works, the satyr is shown with the legs and feet of a goat, and inverting him emphasizes these, as well as giving him the position typical of mid-sized animals being slaughtered or skinned before butchering.  Most of his body still seems unflayed, but Apollo holds a large flap of detached skin in the hand not holding his knife.
Compositionally, the "V" shape made by Marsyas's legs is echoed by the highlighted "V"s of the bent arms of the four figures nearest to him, all of whom are looking at him.  Indeed, his navel is almost exactly at the centre of the canvas as it now is.  Technical examinations have determined that two of the main differences to the Giulio Romano composition are changes made well after painting was underway; originally the musician merely held his instrument, as in the Giulio Romano composition, and the boy or small satyr and the large dog were not present. A version of the subject with these features, not by Titian or his workshop but perhaps roughly contemporary, is in a private collection in Venice. It may be based on a different version by Titian, or a study, and in these respects is closer to the Giulio Romano drawing (illustrated below).
Turkey pan pipes lira da braccio Phrygia Titian donkey diadem Giulio Romano Metamorphoses flaying Pan Phrygian cap Orpheus Muses Ovid satyr Alexander the Great violin laurel aulos Famagusta Hellenized Apollo lyre Midas Marsyas Muse left Marcantonio Bragadin Cyprus Ottomans Venetian