Romance of Roman Villas (The Renaissance)

o, Duke of Urbino, giv

will he try s

ticking to o

dying music, t

ets with their "

setting up f

palaces, an

tatue-every

. St

riences, vital as they were to the flowering of his character and genius. I saw only the change; he left me a youth, na?ve, ignorant, but filled with a divine enthusiasm, inspired as it we

d over him, as the child of his soul. But he divined also from the mere beholding of Da Vinci's

tiful, joyous, and noble in classical art. Fra Bartolommeo could not fail to be distressed by these tendencies in his disciple. Raphael came to him one da

ed in anguished warning, "beware, for

made Agostino Chigi his banker and farmer of the alum mines whose yearly revenue was estimated at $100,000. Nor did Chigi with this elevation forget old friends, for in the spring of 1507 he came to Siena to fetch me as a personal favour to Rome, but on our arrival he introduced me to the Pope, and obtained from him my commission to decorate the Stanza della Segna

hem to-day in that glorious fresco of the School of Athens, the serious inspired face of the young maestro cheek by cheek with the coarser

nceptions with which he glorified the walls of the Vatican, and admiring the daring wh

ria Dovizio's promise that he should find her when this was accomplished I had one day convincing proof;

'S BO

t bound me with

her two tende

flushed rose 'n

ring and with c

e no plaint, so

ove, I long

ke, how sweet th

nd my neck! And

he embodied s

bonds I suffer

ills whom it do

still with tender

heavy and I

ence eloquent

l and

f Athens, in the Vat

Bernardo Dovizio, dazzled by the change in Raphael's fortunes and repentin

d, "but has written me confirming our betrothal. She tells me, too, that she has lo

nd that he told us of his prosperity; how he was sole owner of five score banking houses outrivalling those of the Medici and, indeed, every other firm in the world; how he monopolised not alone the alum, but also the wheat and salt industries; how his lakes al

ungara upon the Tiber which should excel all of the Roman palaces, and while Peruzzi was his chosen architect, Raphael and I should divide its decoration. "For if I have become a princ

sudden transformation was wrought in the demeanour of our old friend. His face became purple and swollen and his arms fell to his sides. Not a word spake he for a full minute,

nesina, R

ad lingered in his heart, and when he met her after a lapse of years and saw how her beauty had matured, an affection, of which he himself may not have been

ugh, but Raphael said, kindly, "Poor fellow, wit

n the building of his villa, and my last hope of employment in Rome was fading like a cruel mirage. But Raphael could well afford to waive Chigi's patronage, for him it was but another step in the golden staircase of success whic

the Pope, announcing that certain ancient statues had been discovered in the gardens of the villa of Nero at Antium,

iend-since such an excursion is exactly what you would enjoy. We will ride to-morrow

enings like the portals of a Roman bath. And such, indeed, they were, for on the promontory above had been the gardens of the imperial villa, and from them staircases carven in the rock descended to this subterranean chamber, which at full-tide the sea, rushing through a long canal, once converted into a swimming-pool. The great cavern had been dry for centuries, for the tid

ed by a shaft of light which fell upon it slantwise from the chasm in the roof, was

s though he were an archangel who had alighted from his flaming c

enth heaven, as on that memorable night at Siena, and while he gazed at the statue a mysterious voice, cle

he song ended in a peal of laughter, and we knew that some one was looking down upon us from the old Roman garden. No one but Imperia could sing like that, and when

then I did not realise that though Raphael had recognised the voice he still supposed that it was Mari

le distance, of whom I inquired, pointed to the shore, and

and Chigi himself is standing at the stern waving his cap to us. There is a lady wit

ng to him as of old. The unsteadiness of the vessel is but an excuse. Many times at Cetinale have I