bject for comparison with the Arcieri, is hatched all
over in straight lines; a method adopted by Michelangelo when working
with the pen, but, so far as I am aware, never, or very rarely, used
when he was handling chalk. The style of this design and its exquisite
workmanship correspond exactly with the finish of the Cavalieri series
at Windsor. The paper, moreover, is indorsed in Michelangelo's
handwriting with a memorandum bearing the date April 12, 1530. We have
then in this masterpiece of draughtsmanship an example, not of
Raffaello in a Michelangelising mood, but of Michelangelo for once
condescending to surpass Raffaello on his own ground of loveliness and
rhythmic grace.

CHAPTER VII

I

Julius died upon the 21st of February 1513. "A prince," says
Guicciardini, "of inestimable courage and tenacity, but headlong, and
so extravagant in the schemes he formed, that his own prudence and
moderation had less to do with shielding him from ruin than the
discord of sovereigns and the circumstances of the times in Europe:
worthy, in all truth, of the highest glory had he been a secular
potentate, or if the pains and anxious thought he employed in
augmenting the temporal greatness of the Church by war had been
devoted to her spiritual welfare in the arts of peace."

Italy rejoiced when Giovanni de' Medici was selected to succeed him,
with the title of Leo X. "Venus ruled in Rome with Alexander, Mars
with Julius, now Pallas enters on her reign with Leo." Such was the
tenor of the epigrams which greeted Leo upon his triumphal progress to
the Lateran. It was felt that a Pope of the house of Medici would be a
patron of arts and letters, and it was hoped that the son of Lorenzo
the Magnificent might restore the equilibrium of power in Italy. Leo
X. has enjoyed a greater fame than he deserved. Extolled as an
Augustus in his lifetime, he left his name to what is called the
golden age of Italian culture. Yet he cannot be said to have raised
any first-rate men of genius, or to have exercised a very wise
patronage over those whom Julius brought forward. Michelangelo and
Raffaello were in the full swing of work when Leo claimed their
services. We shall see how he hampered the rare gifts of the former by
employing him on uncongenial labours; and it was no great merit to
give a free rein to the inexhaustible energy of Raffaello. The project
of a new S. Peter's belonged to Julius. Leo only continued the scheme,
using such assis