By lovers of art the memory of Julius II. will ever be embalmed among the foremost of its princely patrons, and his appreciation of literature may be learned from his remark, that letters are silver to the people, gold to the nobles, diamonds to princes. We have elsewhere to speak of his vast undertakings in architecture, sculpture, and painting, which earned from Vasari the reputation of a spirited pontiff, bent upon leaving memorials of a zealous and liberal encouragement of art. His lavish outlay on St. Peter's strikingly contrasts with his habitual economy. To meet it he authorised a general collection, towards which the Franciscans gathered 27,000 ducats, and in 1507 he proclaimed a sale of jubilee indulgences. This device laid all Christendom under contribution, and proved so productive that he and Leo were tempted almost annually to repeat it, little aware what weapons they were thus forging for future schismatics. The example of his uncle Sixtus, in summoning for the decoration of his capital whatever talent merited such patronage, was followed up by him with the energy belonging to his nature. Besides commencing the metropolitan fane, the immense _cortile_, corridors, and _loggie_ of the Vatican, and the unequalled frescoes of the _stanze_, he was truly the founder of a museum of ancient art. He rescued the Laocoon and rewarded its discoverer; the Apollo and the Torso took their epithet of Belvidere from the pavilion in which he placed them. Rome owes to him, among other improvements, one of its longest and finest streets, bearing his name, where he began a series of palaces for public offices and the courts of justice, unfortunately never completed. The churches which he re-founded or decorated include S. Pietro in Montorio, Sta. Agnese, SS. Apostoli, and the Madonna del Popolo. In the last of these are the beautiful windows which he brought two famous glass-painters from Marseilles to execute; and beneath them those purest specimens of the revival, in which he invited Sansovino's exquisite chisel to commemorate his talented rival Ascanio Sforza, and his cousin the Cardinal of Recanati. For objects so laudable the moment was propitious, and fortune seconded his efforts; but it was more than chance which enabled him to select at once the greatest painter, the most gifted sculptor, and the first architect whom the modern world has seen,--to give simultaneous employment worthy of their genius to Raffaele, Michael Angelo, and Bramante.