And now I come to our Roman life and especially to that familiar intercourse at the Villa Chigi where Raphael and I were nearer of one spirit, for all your opportunities, than were you and he, my Giulio. In Rome, as in Siena, I preceded him, and had the better chance for fortune's favours, which I wilfully threw away. For early in his pontificate, Pope Julius II. 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 Segnatura. But, fool that I was, I fancied my luck could not desert me, and painted only when it pleased me, ran my horses at all the races in Italy, and played the dandy, the spendthrift, and the roistering spark, until his Holiness in disgust turned me from the Vatican, and called Raphael to take my place, bidding him erase the little work I had done upon the ceiling.
This, however, Raphael refused to do. On the contrary he did me the honour to paint my portrait beside his own, where you may see both of them 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 features of his laughing, devil-may-care friend; and I prize more highly that testimony of his esteem than all the other honours of my life.
I lingered on aimlessly at Rome, watching him at his work, fascinated by the superb conceptions with which he glorified the walls of the Vatican, and admiring the daring which enthroned Apollo and his attendant muses there in the very sanctuary of Christendom.
It was his homage to the old worship, his endeavour to bring back Apollo, and that he thought then of Maria Dovizio's promise that he should find her when this was accomplished I had one day convincing proof; for, turning over his sketches, I found scribbled upon the back of a study for the Disputa this sonnet:
"LOVE'S BONDAGE"
"Love, thou hast bound me with a cruel force,
The light of her two tender starry eyes,
A face like snow flushed rose 'neath sunset skies,
With gentle bearing and with chaste discourse.
But I would make no plaint, so great my bliss.
The more I love, I long to love again.
How light the yoke, how sweet the circling chain
Of her arms round my neck! And 'neath her kiss
Leaps forth the embodied soul in ecstacy.
Unloosed those bonds I suffer ceaseless pain,
For great joy kills whom it doth wholly move.
Though throbbing still with tender thought of thee,
My heart is heavy and I speak in vain,
But be my silence eloquent of love."[3]
| Raphael and Sodoma Fragment of School of Athens, in the Vatican—Raphael | Alinari |
I knew that the poem was addressed to Maria, for it was at this time that Bernardo Dovizio, dazzled by the change in Raphael's fortunes and repenting of his hasty action at Cetinale, offered my friend the hand of his niece.
Raphael had told me of this, begging my congratulations. "She is at Urbino," he said, "but has written me confirming our betrothal. She tells me, too, that she has loved me all these years. Such constancy is miraculous, and I am the happiest of men."