Throughout the Middle Ages the only thoroughfare from the Bridge of St. Angelo to the Square of St. Peter’s was the Borgo Vecchio. It was a narrow and tortuous street and quite inadequate to the traffic and processions and pilgrimages which continually passed between its rows of crowded old houses. Alexander VI formed the new Borgo by cutting a street through the orchards, gardens, and slums of this quarter, and by granting special privileges to the property owners who, within a specified time would build on it houses not less than forty feet high. The Pope was greatly interested in his new street and christened it for himself, the Via Alessandrina. He was fortunate in having in Rome at that time Bramante of Urbino, who was just launched on that career of popular favor which was only to be surpassed in length of days or in exaggerated estimation by the career of Bernini a century later. A sure way to please the Pope was to employ some great architect and to erect a noble house upon the new thoroughfare. Raphael, who was amusing himself with architecture, is said to have worked with Bramante in the construction of the palace afterward owned by him, next door to the palace owned by the Queen of Cyprus,[A] and the great room on the _piano nobile_, the beautiful wooden ceiling of which had been designed by Bramante, was a stately studio. The room is now divided into two apartments; but it is easy in imagination to sweep away the modern alterations and to see this most beautiful, gracious, and best-loved of all Italian artists at work here among his pupils, or receiving with an exquisite sweetness and modesty the greatest princes of the Church and State.