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Violence, debauchery, popes, emperors, gods, martyrs, a cardinal's mistress — Titian's work encompassed them all. He had talent to burn and his sensuous paintings were a must-have for the élite of Renaissance Europe. Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) became Venice's official painter in 1516, and was top in Europe until his death in 1576 aged (he claimed) ninetysomething. "Titian," a banquet of his major works harvested from leading European and American galleries, can be savored at London's National Gallery from Feb. 19 through May 18, and — in slightly different form — at the Prado, Madrid, from June 9 through Sept. 7.

Saints and pagan gods were all the rage in the 16th century, and Titian's patrons wanted lavish scenes to decorate their castles and palaces. And what's not to like about the divine lifestyle: a constant round of wild parties, battles, adventures and seductions. The stories gave Titian a chance to luxuriate in glowing nakedness, gleaming jewelry, strokable fur, lush lawns and tangled forests. He could also pour sincere emotion into the Christian story, producing tender madonnas or dark scenes of Jesus' torture and death. To David Jaffé, senior curator at the National Gallery, Titian's empathy was his distinctive gift. When he depicts a beautiful woman, he says, "you can feel his real admiration. If he is painting a tragic subject, like a martyrdom, he is sharing the grief." He points to Titian's last picture, the Pietà of 1576: in a shadowy niche Mary struggles to support her son's dead body. Painted during the plague that destroyed a third of Venice's population of around 175,000, the work was an attempt to "influence God, to plead with him." The aged Titian succumbed, leaving the picture unfinished.

Titian's reputation was bolstered by good public relations. Writer Pietro Aretino, whose volumes of flattering and waspish letters ensured a wary respect from the highest in the land, liked to boost his friend's work, describing every new portrait even when he hadn't actually seen it. Between them they stimulated demand. "If you were anyone you wanted to be portrayed, and portrayed by Titian," Jaffé says. "You would look grander, smarter, more imposing than anyone else." The young man who sat for his portrait around 1520 may be nameless now, but he still has plenty of gravitas. Yet Titian's virtuoso brushstrokes weren't just decoration; they flowed from his identification with the subject.

"Titian" reunites for the first time in over 400 years a set of mythological scenes based on descriptions of ancient art by 3rd century B.C. writer Philostratus, made for the private room of warlord and art lover Duke Alfonso d'Este. Looking at them side by side, you can see they form a panorama, with the landscape lining up, and a character apparently walking out of one painting to appear in another. They show a "dream world of people dancing, singing, drinking, having fun," says Jaffé. Titian was a good man at a party, and not everyone in The Andrians stays robed as they loll next to a river of wine. In Bacchus and Ariadne, the wine god leaps out of his chariot to meet a princess abandoned by her boyfriend on the island of Naxos. She was quickly off with the old love (Theseus, who's he?). Things haven't changed much in the Greek islands, except that cars have replaced cheetah-drawn chariots, and fewer revelers dress in snakes.

Titian produced "some of the sexiest pictures that you will see anywhere," says Jaffé. He pushed "the envelope of how erotic you could go in a painting." Danaë, painted for Pope Paul III's grandson Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and using his girlfriend's features, actually shows a human making love with a god. And not just any god, but the big guy, Zeus, who took the form of a shower of gold to seduce Danaë. (For Zeus this was normal: he liked to dress up as a swan, bull, cloud or whatever when wooing the ladies.)

If such godly shenanigans leave you cold, you can concentrate on a detail like landscape or jewelry, and be amazed by the different ways Titian handles it. You can look past Bacchus' right knee and enjoy the view of a far-off city and misty mountains. Or you can side-step the central struggle of Tarquin and Lucretia and examine the rapist's brocade vest, an illusion created by indicating the pattern in some areas then scribbling in others.

Lucretia's Violation is safely fictional, but the image, painted for Philip II of Spain, is still shocking. Jaffé sees no conflict between such scenes and Christian works, instead tracing echoes between the despairing gestures of Lucretia and St. Lawrence, who allegedly was roasted to death for his religious beliefs. He even parallels Lucretia's cringing attitude with Christ tormented by Pilate's soldiers. "We begin to feel her distress, her gesture is the same as in [The Martyrdom of] St. Lawrence when there is nowhere else left to go, a final gesture of pleading for escape from your fate."

Titian's art transcends violent content and sometimes battered surfaces to seduce the eye with its costly pigments and breathtaking skill. It evokes a world where military commanders love art and Popes make their grandsons cardinals — and then they all line up for a group portrait.

• LUCY FISHER/LONDON