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While the hostess was refreshing Emanuela with sweet wine and biscuits the valiant little guitarist, Biagio Cubas, who had sunk down in a corner and was sobbing profusely, was served with a glass of genuine Xeres, which he drained to the last drop with a gladsome "Donna, viva hasta mil annos."
Not till five years later have we any evidence of a rustic eclogue forming part of an actual show. In 1513, Giuliano de' Medici was at Rome, and in the entertainment provided at the Capitol on the occasion of his receiving the freedom of the city was included an eclogue by a certain 'Blosio, otherwise Biagio Pallai delia Sabina, of the Roman Academy. The argument alone has come down to us.
The second story, which existed as a kind of tower above each end of the façade, was thrown down by the great earthquake, and never rebuilt. The loggia has stone benches against the walls, one to the left, and two, one above the other, to the right, which were the seats for senators on great fête days. In 1462 there was another fire, so that only fragments of Onofrio's work remain the hall on the ground floor with the seventeenth-century wooden ceiling, several of the caps of the loggia, and the courtyard within, the great door and the windows of the first floor. This is all that appears to have been preserved. The great council then called in Michelozzo the Florentine and George of Sebenico. The former was at Ragusa in 1463, looking after the building of the walls of the city; and on February 11, 1464, it was ordered "that the palace be rebuilt" after his designs; but, in the following June, George of Sebenico was appointed, working, no doubt, on the general lines laid down by Michelozzo. The great hall was burnt during the French siege, and very little remains inside worthy of note. There are two tolerable pictures, one an early copy of the Paris Bordone in the National Gallery, the Venus and Adonis, and the other, a Baptism of Christ, in the manner of Paduan work of the fifteenth century. Both have been restored. The courtyard has an arcade of round arches, resting on cylindrical columns with Renaissance caps, and an upper arcade resting on twin columns and piers, two arches to each bay, both stories being vaulted with sustaining arches, but without ribs. The loggia in front has ribs and bosses at the intersections. A small staircase to the right contains other remains of Onofrio's building a bracket, on which is carved a figure of Justice holding a label, and with a mutilated lion on each side of her; opposite to it is a capital, on which is carved the Rector administering justice; neither of them in their original place. The main doorway is pointed with a richly carved moulding and caps, which belong to Onofrio's work; above it is S. Biagio in a Renaissance niche, and between the caps and the arch a shallow frieze is interposed, on which are carved little figures engaged in combats, a love scene, and Cupids with an organ and trumpets. The corbels from which the vaults spring are carved, the subjects being two groups of boys playing, a man fighting a dragon or basilisk with club and little target, a struggle between a girl and a bear, &c. The doors at the end, the Porta della Carit
"Ah no, thank the Blessed Virgin!" said Anita; "the dearest, most beautiful of Signoras is well, but I am obliged to tell her to-day that there are no more anemones. Biagio went yesterday to the farthest corner of the Villa Doria, to a dark shady spot beyond the Dove-Cote, which the strangers know not, hoping to find some; but the heavy rains had beaten them all down there is no longer one left.
Messer Biagio da Cesena replied that he considered it highly improper to paint so many shameless, naked figures in such an honourable building, and that it was not a fit work for the Pope’s chapel, but more suitable to a bagno or an inn. Michael Angelo nettled by this resolved to revenge himself at once.
Astorre, who dared not lift his eyes, and was so busy making crosses on himself that he had no hands to spare, kept his on till Luca nudged Biagio, and Biagio cuffed him soundly, saying, "Uncover, cow-face." Then Luca on his knees made an offering of cheese and black bread to the Lady. They saw the gleam of her white hand as she stretched it out to take the victual.
After leaving Madonna di San Biagio, the road strikes at once into an open country, expanding on the right towards the woody ridge of Monte Fallonica, on the left toward Cetona and Radicofani, with Monte Amiata full in front its double crest and long volcanic slope recalling Etna; the belt of embrowned forest on its flank, made luminous by sunlight.
It was another friar who was, as it were, to people that world, a little more human perhaps, a little less than Paradise, which Angelico had seen; to people it at least with children, little laughing rascals from the street corner, caught with a soldo and turned into angels. Another friar, but how different. The story, so romantic, so full of laughter and tears, that Vasari has told us of Fra Lippo Lippi, is one of his best known pages; I shall not tell it again. Four little panels painted by him are here in this room, beside the work of Fra Angelico. While not far away you come upon two splendid studies by Perugino of two monks of the Vallombrosa, Dom Biagio Milanesi and Dom Baldassare, the finest portraits he ever painted, and in some sort his most living work. Four other works by Perugino may also be found here, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, a Piet
He looked wildly around, and then at the face of the man who had promised to buy the picture. Of course he would refuse to take such a thing. But, to his surprise, the citizen looked well pleased, and even praised the work. 'It is well worth the money, he said; 'and if thou wilt return with me to my house, I will pay thee the six gold pieces. Biagio scarcely knew what to do.
They are kept in leather cases, and the tourist generally makes the expected exclamations when they are disclosed to view. There is an "N" stamped upon the metal, and it is thought that Nuremberg was responsible for them. The church of S. Biagio is quite near, a late Renaissance building, which replaced the votive church erected in 1349-52 after the plague of 1348, and burnt in 1706.
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