Noticing his pupil's low spirits, and wishing to divert him, the Master one day proposed to take him to the Vatican. The Pope had convened an assembly of learned men to discuss the boundaries of Spanish and Portuguese territory in the new world, with regard to which decision had been requested from the head of the church. Curiosity prompted Giovanni to accept the invitation. Accordingly the two set out for the Vatican.
Passing through the Hall of the Popes, where Alexander had invested Cæsar with the Golden Rose, they entered the inner chambers (now called the Apartamenti Borgia). The arches and vaulting, and the mural spaces between the arches had all been decorated by Pinturicchio with brilliant frescoes—scenes from the New Testament, from the lives of the saints; scenes also from the pagan mysteries. Osiris was seen at his espousals with Isis, teaching men to till the ground, to gather fruits, to plant the vine; he was shown slain of men, rising again, leaving the earth, reappearing as the White Bull, the blameless Apis. However strange this deification of the Bull of the House of Borgia might seem in the chambers of the High Priest of Christendom, the all-pervading joy of life harmonised the two sets of subjects, the sacred and profane, the Christian and the pagan mysteries, the son of Jupiter and the Son of Jehovah. In each picture slender cypresses bent before the breeze, among the broad hills proper to the painter's native Umbria; birds played at the vernal sports of love; St. Elizabeth embracing the Virgin cried, 'Blessed is the fruit of thy womb'; by her side a boy was teaching a dog to stand on his hind legs; in the Espousals of Osiris and Isis just such another boy was riding naked on a sacred goose. The same spirit of delight breathed everywhere; in the rich saloons, flower-garlanded; in the angels, with their censers and crosses; in the dancing, goat footed fauns carrying thyrsi and baskets of fruit; in the mystic Bull, the purple Beast, who, radiant as the morning sun, seemed to pour forth the joy of living.
'What is this?' questioned Giovanni of himself, 'is it blasphemy, or a childlike artlessness? Is not the sacred emotion on the face of Elizabeth the same as that on the face of Isis? Is there not the same prayerful ecstasy on the face of Pope Alexander, bending the knee before the rising Lord, and on the countenance of the Egyptian priest receiving the sun-god slain of men and risen again in the shape of Apis? And this god before whom the people bow, singing hymns of praise and burning incense on his altar, this heraldic Bull of the Borgias, transformed into a Golden Calf—is nothing else than the Roman pontiff himself, whom the servile poets have called a god.'
Cæsare magna fuit, nunc Roma est maxima · Sextus
Regnat Alexander, ille vir, iste Deus.
This identification of the God and the Beast seemed to Giovanni absurd, yet awful.
As he examined the magnificent paintings with which the walls were adorned, he listened to the talk of the prelates and great men who filled the saloons, and waited for the Pope.
'Whence come you, Messer Bertrando?' asked Cardinal d'Arborea of the envoy from the court of Ferrara.
'From the cathedral, Monsignore.'
'How is His Holiness? Tired?'