dern art, but still a mystic, a young archangel in
knowledge and power.

He studied first with Fra Bartolommeo in the cloister of San Marco, and
the painter-monk yearned over him, as the child of his soul. But he
divined also from the mere beholding of Da Vinci's pictures what I had
been able to learn only by painful study, the secret of the master's
charm.

At the same time the strong undercurrent of the Greek spirit rife in
Florence was bearing him irresistibly on to his mission as leader of all
that is beautiful, joyous, and noble in classical art. Fra Bartolommeo
could not fail to be distressed by these tendencies in his disciple.
Raphael came to him one day saying, "Beloved Master, his holiness the
Pope has called me to Rome; and I go with joy, for it has been revealed
to me that there I shall find Apollo."

"Ah! my son," the pious painter replied in anguished warning, "beware,
for whoso findeth Apollo loseth Christ."

And now I come to our Roman life and especially to that familiar
intercourse at the Villa Chigi where Raphael and I were nearer of one
spirit, for all your opportunities, than were you and he, my Giulio. In
Rome, as in Siena, I preceded him, and had the better chance for
fortune's favours, which I wilfully threw away. For early in his
pontificate, Pope Julius II. made Agostino Chigi his banker and farmer
of the alum mines whose yearly revenue was estimated at $100,000. Nor
did Chigi with this elevation forget old friends, for in the spring of
1507 he came to Siena to fetch me as a personal favour to Rome, but on
our arrival he introduced me to the Pope, and obtained from him my
commission to decorate the Stanza della Segnatura. But, fool that I was,
I fancied my luck could not desert me, and painted only when it pleased
me, ran my horses at all the races in Italy, and played the dandy, the
spendthrift, and the roistering spark, until his Holiness in disgust
turned me from the Vatican, and called Raphael to take my place, bidding
him erase the little work I had done upon the ceiling.

This, however, Raphael refused to do. On the contrary he did me the
honour to paint my portrait beside his own, where you may see both of
them to-day in that glorious fresco of the _School of Athens_, the
serious inspired face of the young maestro cheek by cheek with the
coarser features of his laughing, devil-may-care friend; and I prize
more highly that testimony of his esteem than all the other honours of
my lif