DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51585#0159
RAPHAEL SANZIO D’URBINO.
155
models for sculpture, particularly for a statue of
Jonah, now in the church of Santa Maria del
Popolo. Nor was this all. With a princely mag-
nificence he had sent artists at his own cost to
various parts of Italy and into Greece, to make
drawings from those remains of antiquity which his
numerous and important avocations prevented him
from visiting himself. He was in close intimacy and
correspondence with most of the celebrated men of
his time ; interested himself in all that was going
forward ; mingled in society, lived in splendour,
and was always ready to assist generously his own
family, and the pupils who had gathered round him.
The Cardinal Bibbiena offered him his niece in mar-
riage, with a dowry of three thousand gold crowns ;
but the early death of Maria di Bibbiena prevented
this union, for which it appears that Raphael him-
self had no great inclination. In possession of all
that ambition could desire, for him the cup of life
was still running over with love, hope, power,
glory—when, in the very prime of manhood, and
in the midst of vast undertakings, he was seized
with a violent fever, caught, it is said, in superin-
tending some subterranean excavations, and expired
after an illness of fourteen days. His death took
place on Good Friday (his birth-day), April 6,1520,
having completed his thirty-seventh year. Great
was the grief of all classes ; unspeakable that of his
friends and scholars. The pope had sent every day
155
models for sculpture, particularly for a statue of
Jonah, now in the church of Santa Maria del
Popolo. Nor was this all. With a princely mag-
nificence he had sent artists at his own cost to
various parts of Italy and into Greece, to make
drawings from those remains of antiquity which his
numerous and important avocations prevented him
from visiting himself. He was in close intimacy and
correspondence with most of the celebrated men of
his time ; interested himself in all that was going
forward ; mingled in society, lived in splendour,
and was always ready to assist generously his own
family, and the pupils who had gathered round him.
The Cardinal Bibbiena offered him his niece in mar-
riage, with a dowry of three thousand gold crowns ;
but the early death of Maria di Bibbiena prevented
this union, for which it appears that Raphael him-
self had no great inclination. In possession of all
that ambition could desire, for him the cup of life
was still running over with love, hope, power,
glory—when, in the very prime of manhood, and
in the midst of vast undertakings, he was seized
with a violent fever, caught, it is said, in superin-
tending some subterranean excavations, and expired
after an illness of fourteen days. His death took
place on Good Friday (his birth-day), April 6,1520,
having completed his thirty-seventh year. Great
was the grief of all classes ; unspeakable that of his
friends and scholars. The pope had sent every day