ABSTRACT
FROM time immemorial Rome has been held to be the arena of the talents—and so, as regards Raphael’s time, Urbino may be regarded as their melting-pot and Florence may be called their academy. Rome has seldom produced anything peculiarly its own throughout its entire history, but there has always been inherent in its very soil the power of lifting above themselves those already formed and mature. Even Titian and Velazquez could not but excel themselves in their portraits of Popes, the highest commission that could then be given to a portrait-painter.
