Pope Leo X. at Raphael's Bier
From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of Franz Hanfstaengl
It was Raphael's grief rather than, as reported, a fever taken in superintending archæological excavations which truly caused his death on his thirty-seventh birthday, upon that Good Friday which neither you nor I, my Giulio, can ever forget.
Margherita told me that in his delirium he knew her not, but kissed her hands, calling her "Maria" and begging her forgiveness. To the poor girl he left by will ample support; but, by the same testament, he was buried by the side of Maria Dovizio, beneath whose name he caused to be chiselled the inscription, "The affianced wife of Raphael Santi, whom death deprived of a happy marriage."
CHAPTER III
A CELLINI CASKET
INTERLUDE
The trellis that once shut the forest trees
From the fair flowers, all torn and broken is,
Though still the lily's scent is on the breeze,
And the rose clasps the broken images.
William Morris.
NEGLECTED but not ruinous, its marbles mossy, its once unrivalled garden invaded by sweet wild-flower banditti which run riot among the gentle roses, its fountains dry, their cracks and crannies the homes of basking lizards, its charming loggia trodden only by enthusiasts for whom every spot touched by the genius of Raphael is a shrine of pilgrimage—the Villa Madama, though appealing in its desertion, is not a melancholy solitude.