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As a matter of fact and as a comparison of the above-cited dates will show eighteen days had elapsed between Giovanni Borgia's leaving Cesare at Forli and his succumbing at Urbino which in itself disposes of the matter.
Strozzi and Farnesi, who afterwards followed this profession, enlisted in the ranks of France or Spain, and won their laurels in Northern Europe. While Leo X. held the Papal chair, the duchy of Urbino was for a while wrested from the house of Della Rovere, and conferred upon Lorenzo de' Medici. Francesco Maria made a better fight for his heritage than Guidobaldo had done.
From Urbino Cæsar wrote his sister as follows: ILLUSTRIOUS LADY AND DEAREST SISTER: I know nothing could be better medicine for your Excellency in your present illness than the good news which I have to impart. I must tell you that I have just had information that Camerino will yield.
The so-called Duke of Norfolk at the Pitti, supposed to represent the young Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino. Also the Isabella d'Este at Vienna, and somewhat earlier, the Cardinal Ippolito in Hungarian dress, at the Pitti; and the Daughter of Robert Strozzi, at Berlin.
He then departed from Urbino and went to Rome, where he executed in painting, in S. Caterina da Siena on the Strada Giulia, a Resurrection of Christ, wherein he made himself known as a rare and excellent master, having done it with good design and with figures foreshortened in beautiful attitudes and well coloured, to which those who are of the profession and have seen it are able to bear ample testimony.
It is a well-composed scene, full of animation, and broad in treatment, and is fortunately in a good state of preservation. The altar-pieces to which all this series of predelle belong are unknown. We will now consider the fine Standard, painted in 1494 for the church of Santo Spirito in Urbino.
Yet, confining himself almost wholly to his own adventures, he presents a very vivid picture of the sad life led by the Pope and cardinals, vainly hoping for succour from Urbino, wrangling together about the causes of the tragedy, sewing the crown jewels into their doublets, and running the perils of the siege with common soldiers on the ramparts.
Wherefore it may be surely said that those who are the possessors of such rare and numerous gifts as were seen in Raffaello da Urbino, are not merely men, but, if it be not a sin to say it, mortal gods; and that those who, by means of their works, leave an honourable name written in the archives of fame in this earthly world of ours, can also hope to have to enjoy in Heaven a worthy reward for their labours and merits.
Vasari, who saw it in the picture-closet of the Duke of Urbino, describes it, no doubt, as "une Venere giovanetta a giacere, con fieri e certi panni sottili attorno."
But this animal, devoting his attention to his beasts and his follies, would not press the work forward; and therefore, after Raffaello da Urbino had been brought to Rome by the architect Bramante, and it had become known to the Pope how much he surpassed the others, his Holiness ordained that neither Perugino nor Giovanni Antonio should work any more in the above-named apartments; indeed, that everything should be thrown to the ground.
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