ng and excellent grace, and wearing a black cap.

Nor is one able to describe the beauty and goodness that are to be
seen in the heads and figures of the Evangelists, to whose
countenances he gave an air of attention and intentness very true to
life, and particularly in those who are writing. Thus, behind S.
Matthew, who is copying the characters from the tablet wherein are
the figures (which is held before him by an angel), and writing them
down in a book, he painted an old man who, having placed a piece of
paper on his knee, is copying all that S. Matthew writes down; and
while intent on his work in that uncomfortable position, he seems to
twist his head and his jaws in time with the motion of the pen. And
in addition to the details of the conceptions, which are numerous
enough, there is the composition of the whole scene, which is truly
arranged with so much order and proportion, that he may be said to
have given therein such a proof of his powers as made men understand
that he was resolved to hold the sovereignty, without question,
among all who handled the brush.

He also adorned this work with a view in perspective and with many
figures, executed in such a sweet and delicate manner, that Pope
Julius was induced thereby to cause all the scenes of the other
masters, both the old and the new, to be thrown to the ground, so
that Raffaello alone might have the glory of all the labours that
had been devoted to these works up to that time. The work of
Giovanni Antonio Sodoma of Vercelli, which was above Raffaello's
painting, was to be thrown down by order of the Pope; but Raffaello
determined to make use of its compartments and grotesques. There
were also some medallions, four in number, and in each of these he
made a figure as a symbol of the scenes below, each figure being on
the same side as the scene that it represented. Over the first
scene, wherein he painted Philosophy, Astrology, Geometry, and
Poetry making peace with Theology, is a woman representing
Knowledge, who is seated on a throne that is supported on either
side by a figure of the Goddess Cybele, each with those many breasts
which in ancient times were the attributes of Diana Polymastes; and
her dress is of four colours, standing for the four elements; from
the head downwards there is the colour of fire, below the girdle
that of the sky, from the groin to the knees there is the colour of
earth, and the rest, down to the feet, is the colour of water. Wit