red such abilities, and had been a lover of every excellent
work. Whereupon a new Pope was elected in Leo X, who desired that
the work begun should be carried on; and Raffaello thereby soared
with his genius into the heavens, and received endless favours from
him, fortunate in having come upon a Prince so great, who had by the
inheritance of blood a strong inclination for such an art.
Raffaello, therefore, thus encouraged to pursue the work, painted on
the other wall the Coming of Attila to Rome, and his encounter at
the foot of Monte Mario with Leo III, who drove him away with his
mere benediction. In this scene Raffaello made S. Peter and S. Paul
in the air, with swords in their hands, coming to defend the Church;
and while the story of Leo III says nothing of this, nevertheless it
was thus that he chose to represent it, perchance out of fancy, for
it often happens that painters, like poets, go straying from their
subject in order to make their work the more ornate, although their
digressions are not such as to be out of harmony with their first
intention. In those Apostles may be seen that celestial wrath and
ardour which the Divine Justice is wont often to impart to the
features of its ministers, charged with defending the most holy
Faith; and of this we have proof in Attila, who is to be seen riding
a black horse with white feet and a star on its forehead, as
beautiful as it could be, for in an attitude of the utmost terror he
throws up his head and turns his body in flight. There are other
most beautiful horses, particularly a dappled jennet, which is
ridden by a figure that has all the body covered with scales after
the manner of a fish; which is copied from the Column of Trajan,
wherein the figures have armour of that kind; and it is thought that
such armour is made from the skins of crocodiles. There is Monte
Mario, all aflame, showing that when soldiers march away, their
quarters are always left a prey to fire. He made portraits from
nature, also, in some mace-bearers accompanying the Pope, who are
marvellously lifelike, as are the horses on which they are riding;
and the same is true of the retinue of Cardinals, and of some grooms
who are holding the palfrey on which rides the Pope in full
pontificals (a portrait of Leo X, no less lifelike than those of the
others), with many courtiers; the whole being a most pleasing
spectacle and well in keeping with such a work, and also very useful
to our art, particularl