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It may well have suggested to Rubens, who must have seen it among the King's possessions on the occasion of his visit to London, his superb, yet singularly unrefined, Hélène Fourment in a Fur Mantle, now also in the Vienna Gallery. The great portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino in the Uffizi belong, as has already been noted, to 1537.
And what is singular is, that doing nothing more than this work, which as yet he has not completed, and having commenced it when a youth, there is therein comprised the work of twenty painters united in that vault alone. Raphael of Urbino painted in this city a second work of such art that it would have been the first if the other had not existed.
Whilst the bustle of preparation went on briskly in Urbino, Gian Maria, on his side, was rapidly disposing of affairs in Babbiano, that he might return to the nuptials for which he was impatient. But he had chanced upon a deeper tangle than he had reckoned with, and more to do than he had looked for.
Of these, Alessandro was a mulatto, his mother having been a Moorish slave in the Palace of Urbino; and whether his father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a base groom, was not known for certain. To such extremities were the Medici reduced. In order to keep their house alive, they were obliged to adopt this foundling.
Do you hear what the captain says, Fanfulla? She means to resist this wedding by armed force if needs be. Now, on my soul, if Guidobaldo insists upon the union after this, why, then, he has no heart, no feeling. As I live, she is a kinswoman that such a warlike prince might well be proud of. Small wonder that they do not fear the Borgia in Urbino." And he laughed again.
He showed himself calm and tranquil at the loss of Urbino, telling Macchiavelli that he "had not forgotten the way to reconquer it," when it should suit him.
On an excursion to Tivoli with the great Federigo of Urbino the time was happily spent in talk on the military system of the ancients, and particularly on the Trojan war. Even on his journey to the Congress of Mantua he searched, though unsuccessfully, for the labyrinth of Clusium mentioned by Pliny, and visited the so-called villa of Virgil on the Mincio.
They differ considerably in details, but have the same almost mathematical exactitude of pyramidal composition. That belonging to M. Galichon must have been made in Rome, for it has this rough scrawl in Michelangelo's hand at the bottom, "Tomao, se questo scizzo non vi piace, ditelo a Urbino." He then promises to make another.
As early as 1516 Leo had made him Duke of Urbino, having expelled Guidobaldo's legitimate heirs from their city. Francesco Maria Rovere, his wife, and his adopted mother, Elisabetta, were in Mantua, the asylum of all exiled princes. Leo was consuming with a desire also to drive the Este out of Ferrara, and it was only the protection of France that saved Alfonso from a war with the Pope.
Ariosto, however, was an amusing companion; and the cardinal seems not to have liked to go anywhere without him. In the year 1515 he was attended by the poet part of the way on a journey to Rome and Urbino; but Ariosto fell ill, and had leave to return.