nature; and in the air are four little children, who are holding
open the Gospels. Anything more graceful or more perfect than these
figures no painter could create, since those saints are represented
as seated in the air, in a circle, and so well, that in truth,
besides the appearance of life that the colouring gives them, they
are foreshortened and made to recede in such a manner, that they
would not be otherwise if they were in relief. Moreover, their
vestments show a rich variety, with most beautiful folds in the
draperies, and the expressions of the heads are more Divine than
human; as may be seen in that of Christ, which reveals all the
clemency and devoutness that Divinity can show to mortal men through
the medium of painting. For Raffaello received from nature a
particular gift of making the expressions of his heads very sweet
and gracious; of which we have proof also in the Madonna, who, with
her hands pressed to her bosom, gazing in contemplation upon her
Son, seems incapable of refusing any favour; not to mention that he
showed a truly beautiful sense of fitness, giving a look of age to
the expressions of the Holy Patriarchs, simplicity to the Apostles,
and faith to the Martyrs. Even more art and genius did he display in
the holy Christian Doctors, in whose features, while they make
disputation throughout the scene in groups of six or three or two,
there may be seen a kind of eagerness and distress in seeking to
find the truth of that which is in question, revealing this by
gesticulating with their hands, making various movements of their
persons, turning their ears to listen, knitting their brows, and
expressing astonishment in many different ways, all truly well
varied and appropriate; save only the four Doctors of the Church,
who, illumined by the Holy Spirit, are unravelling and expounding,
by means of the Holy Scriptures, all the problems of the Gospels,
which are held up by those little boys who have them in their hands
as they hover in the air.

On another wall, where the other window is, on one side, he painted
Justinian giving the Laws to the Doctors to be revised; and above
this, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence. On the other side he
painted the Pope giving the Canonical Decretals; for which Pope he
made a portrait from life of Pope Julius, and, beside him, Cardinal
Giovanni de' Medici, who became Pope Leo, Cardinal Antonio di Monte,
and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who afterwards became Pope