ke I might have
accepted the life of a cowled monk, had not Chigi in the nick of time
drawn me from that slough with the announcement that Peruzzi had
completed the building of his villa, and that it was now ready for
decoration.

Here accordingly, while painting in the upper rooms, I enjoyed the
comradeship of that brotherhood of choice spirits--Giovanni da Udine,
Francesco Penni, and the rest--who with thee, my Giulio, wrought so
lovingly under Raphael's direction, illuminating the lower loggia with
the legend of _Cupid and Psyche_.

It is true that to my surprise and sorrow Raphael himself came not, but
I knew that he was overwhelmed with commissions, and to their demands
upon his time I attributed his avoidance of the villa. In the meantime I
delayed not to seek him out, and to express my surprise that I found him
still a bachelor. But at my first probing of that old wound he winced so
perceptibly that I perceived that it was by no means cured, and I made
no demand upon his confidence for an explanation of his delay in
demanding the consummation of an engagement which had not been publicly
dissolved.

[Illustration: _Alinari_

Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma

From the portrait of himself in the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore]

The world gossiped as to the cause of Raphael's neglect of his
affianced. The most part declared him cold, absorbed only in love of his
art, and some whispered that the Pope who was insatiable in his demands
for his work, feared that marriage would lessen his enthusiasm for art,
and had put off indefinitely the wedding-day, promising Raphael the
Cardinal's hat if he remained a celibate.

While I could not believe that this was the true explanation of the
estrangement between the lovers, I was far from suspecting the truth.
Though I called upon Maria Dovizio I got no enlightenment in that
quarter, nay, nor encouragement for my own passion, for when I put forth
some timid essays, they were promptly crushed by a look of such
reproach that I called myself brute as well as fool for my persistency.

Longing to do her service, I determined to haunt my friend until he
should voluntarily confide the secret of the trouble, and if it were
possible bring them together.

With this end in view, in all my leisure hours I frequented Raphael's
studio, where he was painting the most glorious of his Madonnas for the
monks of San Sisto. And here, posing for that divine work, I found again
our c