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Updated: September 13, 2025
The curate went over every inch of the ground. Here lay Luca, Biagio, and Astorre; the belfry of San Zeno was in such and such a direction, the peach-trees in such and such. Good: there they were. What next? According to their account, Madonna had come thus and thus. The good curate bundled off to spy for footprints in the orchard. Marvel! there were none.
Vasari tells us that when Michael Angelo had almost finished the work Pope Paul came to see it, and Messer Biagio da Cesena, Master of the Ceremonies, a very particular person, was with him in the chapel, and was asked what he thought of it.
Let go, Biagio; let go, Luca!" So they whispered and tussled, pulling three different ways. The Lady's voice broke over them like silver rain. "Let him who thought of the kind act give me the milk," she said; so young Astorre on his knees handed her the horn cup, and through the cracks of his fingers watched her drink every drop.
He also refounded his own house in the Strada Giulia at Rome, in order to protect himself from the floods that rise when the Tiber is swollen; and he not only began, but in great part completed, the palace that he occupied near S. Biagio, which now belongs to Cardinal Riccio of Montepulciano, who has finished it, adding most ornate apartments, and spending upon it vast sums in addition to what had been spent by Antonio, which was some thousands of crowns.
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.
A processional cross of the fourteenth century, set upon an eighteenth-century stem, bears figures in relief of Christ, and the Evangelists' symbols, gilt on a silver ground. On the back are the Madonna and Child, with God the Father above and a cherub beneath, SS. Biagio and Francis.
The three shock-heads inspected his burden; there was much whispering, some contention, almost a scuffle. The truth was, that Biagio wanted to take the thing from Astorre, and that Luca would not allow it. Luca was the eldest and wanted to take it himself. Astorre was in tears. "Cristo amore!" he blubbered, "you will spill the milk between you. I thought of it all by myself.
As society became more vicious, it grew nice. Messer Biagio, the Pope's master of the ceremonies, remarked that such things were more fit for stews and taverns than a chapel. The angry painter placed his portrait in Hell with a mark of infamy that cast too lurid a light upon this prudish speech.
He died on the 2nd of July in the year 1555, at the age of eighty-three, and was laid to rest in the burial-place of the Company of S. Biagio in S. Nazzaro. He was a good and upright man, who never had a quarrel or dispute with anyone, and his life was very pure.
On disembarking, he presented himself to the people, received from the signory the standard of S. Biagio, and, with this in his hand, swore on the gospels to preserve and observe the customs and laws of Ragusa. Then he went to the cathedral, receiving at the door incense and holy water from the chapter, who gave him the gospels to kiss, upon which he renewed his oath in front of the altar.
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