It was with a sore heart that I wished my friend joy. He knew not of my trouble, or I think it would have poisoned his happiness, for he sympathised so deeply with all his friends that their sorrows were his own. I mind me that we met Agostino Chigi that day, and 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 alone supplied Rome with fish and his stock farms its markets; that his fleet numbered upwards of an hundred merchant vessels, while thousands of men did him service; that, in short, his fortune was now past computation, and his income beyond his power of spending.
He explained all this not in a spirit of boastfulness, but, with an arm about each of us, told how he desired that we should share in his glory. He had determined to build a villa in Lungara 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 prince of finance," he ended, "you, dear friends, are princes of art, and we will all three join in making this villa a worthy dwelling-place for one whom you knew and admired at Cetinale."
Thinking for the instant that he referred to Imperia, who was now in Rome, Raphael congratulated him warmly and confided his own betrothal to Maria Dovizio. But at that news a 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, but he drew his breath hard, flinging out at length a bitter sarcasm on the faithlessness of women, and bidding Raphael trust not too much to their promises, he abruptly left us.
| Villa Farnesina, Rome | Alinari |
There was only one construction to be put upon his conduct. Maria's loveliness had apparently made no impression upon him at Cetinale, but the memory of it had 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 conscious, flowered suddenly, just as a rose-tree set in ungrateful soil and long accounted dead may in the fulness of time come to unlooked-for efflorescence.
Sharing his envy, I could only mark it with a laugh, but Raphael said, kindly, "Poor fellow, with all his wealth, I am many times richer than he."
In my heart I knew that of her three lovers Maria had chosen wisely, and Chigi's disappointment would not have added to my own affliction, but for the reflection that in the present turn of affairs he would not be likely to hasten 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 which now mounted invitingly before him. The Pope not only overwhelmed him with projects for the decoration of the Vatican but made him curator of all antiques which might be discovered near Rome, with full power to direct excavations.
Returning to the Vatican from the walk during which we had encountered Chigi, Raphael found awaiting him a letter from the Pope, announcing that certain ancient statues had been discovered in the gardens of the villa of Nero at Antium, (now Porto d'Anzio), and desiring him to examine them and arrange for the transportation of the more remarkable to Rome.