"Arcieri," in the
Queen's collection at Windsor.

It is a group of eleven naked men and one woman, fiercely footing the
air, and driving shafts with all their might to pierce a classical
terminal figure, whose face, like that of Pallas, and broad breast are
guarded by a spreading shield. The draughtsman has indicated only one
bow, bent with fury by an old man in the background. Yet all the
actions proper to archery are suggested by the violent gestures and
strained sinews of the crowd. At the foot of the terminal statue,
Cupid lies asleep upon his wings, with idle bow and quiver. Two little
genii of love, in the background, are lighting up a fire, puffing its
flames, as though to drive the archers onward. Energy and ardour,
impetuous movement and passionate desire, could not be expressed with
greater force, nor the tyranny of some blind impulse be more
imaginatively felt. The allegory seems to imply that happiness is not
to be attained, as human beings mostly strive to seize it, by the
fierce force of the carnal passions. It is the contrast between
celestial love asleep in lustful souls, and vulgar love inflaming
tyrannous appetites:--

_The one love soars, the other downward tends;
The soul lights this, while that the senses stir,
And still lust's arrow at base quarry flies._

This magnificent design was engraved during Buonarroti's lifetime, or
shortly afterwards, by Niccolo Beatrizet. Some follower of Raffaello
used the print for a fresco in the Palazzo Borghese at Rome. It forms
one of the series in which Raffaello's marriage of Alexander and
Roxana is painted. This has led some critics to ascribe the drawing
itself to the Urbinate. Indeed, at first sight, one might almost
conjecture that the original chalk study was a genuine work of
Raffaello, aiming at rivalry with Michelangelo's manner. The calm
beauty of the statue's classic profile, the refinement of all the
faces, the exquisite delicacy of the adolescent forms, and the
dominant veiling of strength with grace, are not precisely
Michelangelesque. The technical execution of the design, however,
makes its attribution certain. Well as Raffaello could draw, he could
not draw like this. He was incapable of rounding and modelling the
nude with those soft stipplings and granulated shadings which bring
the whole surface out like that of a bas-relief in polished marble.
His own drawing for Alexander and Roxana, in red chalk, and therefore
an excellent su