that Raphael meant that she, alone,
hears and understands the heavenly strains.

She is clothed in a garment of cloth of gold, St. Paul in crimson and
green, and the Magdalen in violet.

Some writers claim that the face of the Magdalen is that of Raphael's
love, the "Farnarina," whom he frequently used as a model. The baker's
daughter was a girl of the Trastevere, and it is a coincidence that her
home was near that church dedicated to Cecilia, where the saint's
remains have rested for hundreds of years.

As Mrs. Jameson observed, Sir Joshua Reynolds has given us a paraphrase
of Raphael's painting of music's patron saint in his fine picture of
Mrs. Billington, the famous English singer of his last years, as St.
Cecilia. She holds a music book in her hand, but is listening to the
carolling of some cherubs hovering above her. The composer Haydn paid
the singer a happy compliment suggested by this portrait when he said
to Sir Joshua, "What have you done? you have made her listening to the
angels, you should have represented the angels listening to her." Mrs.
Billington was so delighted with this praise that she gave Haydn a
hearty kiss. This splendid portrait of the charming young singer is in
the Lenox Library in New York.

Raphael's "St. Cecilia" has, of course, a history. In October of the
year 1513, a noble lady of Bologna, named Elena Duglioli dall Olio,
imagined that she heard supernatural voices bidding her to dedicate a
chapel to St. Cecilia in the Church of S. Giovanni in Monte. Upon
telling this to a relative, Antonio Pucci of Florence, he offered to
fit up the chapel at his own expense, and induced his uncle, Lorenzo
Pucci, then newly created a cardinal, to commission Raphael to paint a
picture for the altar. It was finished in 1516.

Tradition relates that Pucci had no ear for music, and was laughed at
by his brother cardinals when chanting mass in the Sistine Chapel. He
thereupon invoked the aid of St. Cecilia, who rewarded the donor of her
picture by remedying his harmonic deficiency.

In 1796, Napoleon's conquering army carried the painting to Paris,
where it remained until 1815, when it was returned to Bologna. It was
at a later date transferred to the art gallery of that city, where it
now hangs. About the middle of the eighteenth century, when the agent
of Augustus III., the Elector of Saxony, was negotiating the purchase
of Italian paintings for the royal gallery in Dresden, the "St.
Ce