of a tone of color, or laughing with Bibbiena and Messer Branconi dall' Aquila, the well-known keeper of the elephant presented to Leo X by the king of Portugal, a great beast which had the distinction of being portrayed by Raphael, and of giving its name to a street.

And what an impressive view they would behold from the loggia! There stood on the right side the Palazzo dei Penitenzieri, built by Cardinal Domenico della Rovere and decorated by Pinturicchio, facing the one designed by Bramante for the wealthy Cardinal Adriano Castelli da Corneto. How many tales of crime, how many deeds of violence, how many traditions of splendor and wickedness could be mentioned in connection with both places. From the gate of the first not long ago the handsome Cardinal Alidosi had emerged, to be murdered by Francesco Maria della Rovere's own hand in the streets of Ravenna; and in the garden of the second a tragical supper had taken place, which had cost Alexander VI his life, and his son Cæsar Borgia a cruel illness. The background was formed by the castle of Sant' Angelo, where Leo X had just caused Cardinal Petrucci to be put to death by strangulation, while he was examining with the help of glasses the scenes painted by Raphael for the representation of the Suppositi of Ari

osto.

In the history of the Peninsula we find no drama which can stand a comparison for scenes of wickedness and grandeur, for civilization and barbarity, with the one enacted in Rome from the pontificate of the Borgia to the sack of 1527. Under Leo X, however, no rumors of war, no conspiracies, no political contingencies, no religious controversies could check the gay, careless, thoughtless spirit which prevailed in court circles, and especially among the Florentine element by which the Pope was surrounded. A

hunting party in the woods of La Magliana, a new play by Bibbiena, a fresh joke by Fra Mariano, the completion of a new masterpiece by Bramante, Raphael, or Marcantonio, a corrida or a tournament attended with loss of life, and other

such wonders of the moment, aroused the interest of society more than the rumors of war or of an impending religious secession. In the midst of the joyous throng of masks celebrating the carnival, of the cavalcades of state in which each prince of the church rode at the head of a powerful retinue of courtiers, body-guards, and partisans, in the general thoughtlessness of the day, a keen observer would have noticed an unknown German friar, on his way from the Augustinian convent of Santa Maria del Popolo to the grave of St. Peter, casting horrified glances at such scenes of

moral depravation, amid such surroundings. The sack of 1527 was the outcome of the impressions which the unknown German friar carried away from Rome on returning to his native land.

Art, however, equally unconscious of the cruelties of the Borgia, of the warlike ambitions of the della Rovere, and of the gayeties of the Medici, had risen pure, noble, great, to heights never attained before; Raphael's house had become its temple. Rome knew of but one artist, and considered that other painters, architects, and sculptors merely carried out his designs. While he himself was directing the reconstruction of St. Peter's, and painting the St. Michael and the Pearl for the king of France, and the Transfiguration for Cardinal de' Medici, princes, bankers, noblemen, prelates were soliciting other works from his hand. To no less strain was put the energy of his pupils, who were covering the walls of the Stanze and the ceilings of the Loggie with immortal paintings, building palaces and villas, laying out gardens, decorating façades and loggias with reliefs in gilt stucco, excavating ancient ruins, and scouring Latium, Campania, and Greece in quest of classic architectural motives. No such active workshop has been or will ever be known in the history of art.

AGOSTINO CHIGI, born at Siena about 1465, of Mariano and Margarita Baldi, was gifted by nature with such keen insight and exquisite tact in the art of trading, that before reaching his fortieth year he had become, financially, the most powerful man in the world. Republics and kingdoms, Christians and infidels, popes and sultans alike, showed the same anxiety to secure his help in monetary affairs, and the same willingness to entrust to him the collectorship of their revenues and customs. Not less "magnifico" does he appear in connection with art and artists, his name being inseparable from those of Raphael, Peruzzi, Giulio Romano, il Sodoma, Penni, Luciani, Lotti, Nani, whom he favored and enriched, and whom he led to the accomplishment of such beautiful works as the chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Pace, the chapel of our Lady of Loreto in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, and the Casino and gardens by the Porta Settimiana (the Farnesina). By a curious but by no means unprecedented coincidence, while many of his contemporaries of dubious fame, or of no fame at all, have found their historians and their panegyrists, no record exists of the career of Agostino, if we except the three attempts made by Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino, Giuseppe Bonafede the Augustinian, and Angelo Galluzzi the Jesuit,' which are

1 Pallavicino, Vita di Alessandro VII, Rome, 1849, vii, 1; Bonafede, I Chigi Augusti, Venice, 1660, p. 169; Galluzzi, Duodecim virorum e gente, Chisia elogia, MSS. in the Chigi Library marked R. V. e.

hardly worth mentioning. A biography, however, exists, written by Agostino's own nephew, Fabio Chigi, who, having been elected Pope in 1655, took the name of Alexander VII. This valuable manuscript, discovered by Professor Giuseppe Cugnoni in 1879 and edited in the following year,1 supplies us with information concerning the splendid use which Agostino made of his boundless wealth, an object lesson to modern Croesuses, who "pecudum ritu ad voluptatem omnia referunt." 2

The Contrada dei Banchi, the Wall Street of the Renaissance, is among those which have suffered the most in the recent transformation of the city. A centre of life, business, and wealth where real property had attained fabulous prices over-crowded and congested, with its ill-lighted premises and ill-ventilated courts, it began to lose its prestige after the middle of the sixteenth century, viz., after the completion of the "piano regolatore" or street reform of Paul III. Rank, fashion, and "la haute finance" began to desert the populous quarters of Ponte and Parione to seek space, air, health, and sunshine in those of Trevi, Colonna, and Monti. And so it came to pass that the section of the city considered the most fashionable and desirable from the time of Innocent VIII to that of Paul III lost caste after the death of the latter, and the palazzetti, until then inhabited by bankers, merchants, and prelates, found tenants only among the lower classes of tradesmen. For this reason the Contrada dei Banchi, with the adjacent courts, lanes, and alleys, has kept its sixteenth century aspect till the present day, free from the changes which modern civilization has inflicted on more fashionable quarters.

1 Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria, vol. ii, a. 1879, pp. 38, 209, 475; vol. iii, 1880, pp. 213, 291, 422.

2 Cicero, Laelius, 9.