The painter meanwhile did not abandon the light attachment by which he was enchained, and one day on returning to his house from one of these secret visits, he was seized with a violent fever,[1] which being ’mistaken for a cold, the physicians inconsiderately caused him to be bled, whereby he found himself exhausted, when he had rather required to be strengthened. Thereupon he made his will, and, as a good Christian, he sent the object of his attachment from the house, but left her a sufficient provision wherewith she might live in decency; having done so much, he divided his property among his disciples; Giulio Romano, that is to say, whom he always loved greatly, and Giovanni Francesco,[2] with whom was joined a certain priest of Urbino, who was his kinsman, but whose name I do not know.[3] He furthermore commanded that a certain portion of his property should be employed in the restoration of one of the ancient tabernacles in Santa Maria Ritonda,[4] which he had selected as his burial-place,[5] and for which he had ordered that an altar, with the figure of Our Lady in marble, should be prepared;[6] all that he possessed besides he bequeathed to Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco, naming Messer Baldassare da Pescia, who was then Datary[7] to the Pope, as his executor. He then confessed, and in much contrition completed the course of his life, on the day whereon it had commenced, which was Good Friday.[8] The master was then in the thirty-seventh
- ↑ Longhena, Pungileoni, Passavant, and all whose researches entitle them to attention, agree to attribute the fever which deprived the Avorld of this great painter, to the too earnest zeal of his labours in the examination of the Roman antiquities, labours which rendered a frame prematurely weakened by mental exertions, an easy prey to the malaria so fatally prevalent in the localities to which his researches must of necessity have led him.
- ↑ To these disciples he left his artistic possessions only; to Cardinal Bibbiena he bequeathed the palace built for him by Bramante.
- ↑ The priest of Urbino, his kinsman, and the Brotherhood of the Misericordia in that city, dividing a certain portion of the master’s property between them, and the remainder going to his kinsmen on the mother’s side, the sons of Giovanni Battista Ciarla.
- ↑ The Pantheon is popularly so called.
- ↑ Raphael also left funds for a mass to be performed yearly for the repose of his soul in Santa Maria ad Martyres, so is the Pantheon also called.
- ↑ This was done by Lorenzo Lotti, called Lorenzetto, whose life follows.
- ↑ President of the Chancery.
- ↑ In the year 1520.
