The letter alluded to at the close of our preceding chapter may be regarded as the matured result of Raffaele's careful study of the Tuscan masters, and an index of his resolution to rival the admired cartoons which had recently placed Da Vinci and Buonarroti at the head of living artists. Another scene was, however, reserved for his triumphs. Julius II. had begun to construct the metropolitan church and palace of Christendom with an energy befitting his character and the undertaking. Michael Angelo and Bramante were already in his service, and he sought to enlist talent and genius from all quarters for this object. The friendly influence of the ducal family, the recommendations of Bramante, or his own extending fame, possibly an acquaintance formed with him at Urbino in 1506, may have suggested Raffaele as a worthy associate in the work. On the Pope's summons he abandoned his projects at Florence early in the autumn of 1508, and, leaving several pictures to be finished by his worthy follower Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, "Repaired To the great city, an emporium then Of golden expectations, and receiving Freights every day from a new world of hope." The tower of Borgia, named from Alexander VI., was at that period the pontifical residence, and on its decoration the best artists had been successfully employed. The lower story was terminated under Alexander by Pinturicchio and his pupils; the upper had already engaged the hands of Piero della Francesca, Signorelli, and Perugino, but several of its compartments remained unpainted. One of these was assigned to Raffaele, and so gratifying was his success that the Pope, with headlong and unhappy haste, ordered all the finished frescoes of the upper suite to be demolished, and the four rooms of which it consisted to be delivered over to his unfettered discretion. This lamentable precipitancy effaced many works of inestimable importance to art, and condemned the noblest productions of pictorial genius to walls in every respect ill-adapted for their reception. The frescoes now occupying these _stanze_ are to Italian painting what the Divina Commedia of Dante is to Italian poetry: the lovers of both, in despair of imitating their excellences, have expended their enthusiastic admiration in volumes of illustrative criticism. These compositions of Raffaele form a magnificent epic in which are strikingly interwoven the endowments of human intellect, the doctrines of Catholic faith, and the incidents of ecclesiastical history, all as conducing to the triumphs of the Christian church.