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When Daniello had finally returned to Rome, Pope Paul IV having a desire to throw to the ground the Judgment of Michelagnolo on account of the nudes, which seemed to him to display the parts of shame in an unseemly manner, it was said by the Cardinals and by men of judgment that it would be a great sin to spoil them, and they found a way out of it, which was that Daniello should paint some light garments to cover them; and the business was afterwards finished in the time of Pius IV by repainting the S. Catherine and the S. Biagio, which were thought to be unseemly.
The high-altar-piece is a Venetian Madonna and Child, with SS. Dominic and Clara. On the north wall is a picture ascribed to Titian, parts of which may be from his hand, but it has been restored. It represents S. Biagio with a crozier, holding the town; S. Mary Magdalene in ecstasy, with long hair and a white dress; at the right the donor kneeling, and behind him Tobit and the Angel.
"I often notice that the portrait of grouty old Biagio attracts more attention than any other of the nearly three hundred figures in the picture." "I don't wonder, for I want to see it too," said Malcom, laughing. They talked also of Vittoria Colonna, at whose home and in whose companionship the lonely master found all his happiness, especially during these years of toil.
As soon as he could after this discovery he went to Sicily to study the locality and found it in all respects suitable for his theory; indeed, it was astonishing how things kept turning up to support his view. It is all in his book The Authoress of the Odyssey, published in 1897 and dedicated to his friend Cavaliere Biagio Ingroja of Calatafimi.
At the bottom of the descent is a tree-planted promenade, across which the grey walls of the Porta Pile glimmer, pierced with a low arch above which the patron saint, S. Biagio, looks forth from an early Renaissance niche, with his hand raised in blessing, as he does from above the other gates and from the huge bulk of the Torre Menze, the great tower crowning the line of walls which ramps up the slope to the left.
There are, in addition, other ornaments in abundance; prisoners, trophies, spoils of war, and others, of which there is no need to make mention. In Venice he made the model of the Convent of the Nuns of S. Biagio Catoldo, which was much extolled.
Accordingly, having learned that he was to dine that morning with a friend of his in the burgh, they went down into the street as soon as they knew him to be at table, and betook themselves to the inn where he had alighted, purposing that Biagio should hold his servant in parley, whilst Giovanni should search his baggage for the feather aforesaid, whatever it might be, and carry it off, to see what he should say to the people of the matter.
At the present day it is to be seen carried to perfect completion, having been executed with supreme grace, and with truly marvellous beauty and variety of composition, by the genius of Antonio, and all the masonry is of a certain stone that has a tinge of white, after the manner of travertine. It stands without the Porta di S. Biagio, on the right hand, half-way up the slope of the hill.
Those who have a day to spare at Montepulciano can scarcely spend it better than in an excursion to Pienza and San Quirico. Leaving the city by the road which takes a westerly direction, the first object of interest is the Church of San Biagio, placed on a fertile plateau immediately beneath the ancient acropolis.
In the Via Giulia, in addition to San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, San Biagio della Pagnotta, San Eligio degli Orefici, and three or four others, there was the so-called Church of the Dead, Santa Maria dell' Orazione; and this church, which is at the lower end behind the Farnese palace, was often visited by Pierre, who liked to dream there of the wild life of Rome, and of the pious brothers of the Confraternita della Morte, who officiate there, and whose mission is to search for and bury such poor outcasts as die in the Campagna.
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