When Giovanni de' Medici became pope as Leo X., a period of splendour and magnificence succeeded the sterner rule of Julius II. Agostino Chigi, the Sienese financier, was the chief of those whose lavish expenditure contributed to enrich Rome with works of art. For him Raphael painted, in 1513-14, the very beautiful fresco of the Triumph of Galatea in his new palace by the Tiber, the Villa Farnesina, and also made a large series of magnificent designs from Apuleius's romance of Cupid and Psyche, which were carried out by a number of his pupils.' For the same patron he painted (also in 1513) his celebrated Sibyls in S. Maria della Pace—figures of exquisite grace, arranged with perfect skill over an arch in the nave. It is not without reason that Vasari gives these the highest position among his fresco paintings. Agostino Chigi also employed Raphael to build for him a private chapel in S. Maria del Popolo, and to make a series of cartoons to be executed in mosaic on the inner dome. The cen tral medallion has a figure of God among clouds and angel boys, surrounded by eight planets, each with its pagan deity and direct ing angel in accordance with Dante's scheme in the Paradiso. The
execution of these brilliant mosaics was carried out in 1516 by the Venetian Luigi della Pace. Probably in the early years of Leo X.'s reign were painted the Madonna della Sedia (Pitti), the S. Cecilia at Bologna (not completed till 1516), the miniature Vision of Ezekiel (Pitti) and two important pictures at Madrid. The latest of these, known as Lo Spasimo, from the church at Palermo, for which it was painted, represents Christ bearing His Cross. The Madonna called Della Perla, "the pearl" of the Spanish royal col lection, was originally painted for Bishop Louis of Canossa ; it was sold by Cromwell with the greater part of Charles I.'s collec tion at Hampton Court. The portrait of Leo X. with Cardinals de' Rossi and de' Medici, in the Pitti, is one of his finest portrait pictures. Little is known about the Madonna di S. Sisto, the 'Chiefly by Giulio Romano, Gianfrancesco Penni and Giovanni da Udine; much injury has been done to these frescoes by repainting.
glory of the Dresden Gallery; no studies or sketches for it exist. One of Raphael's latest works is the large "St. Michael and the Devil," in the Louvre, signed "Raphael Urbinas pingebat,