In a month, the picture was finished. It was curious that Giulia should have sat for it, at Ippolito's request, and for Ippolito; but we know that she did. Affo supposes that she could not in courtesy refuse him, after his coming so chivalrously to her succour. You may see the picture now, at the National Gallery. The Duchess and the painter had quite a friendly parting; and she engaged him, at his earliest leisure, to paint her a portrait of himself. When the Cardinal saw the picture, it gave him a strange mixture of pleasure and pain. "You have doubtless had a pleasant month," said he, moodily. "I wish you had been Ippolito and I Sebastian." And when he found that Sebastian had promised Giulia his own picture, he begged him to introduce _his_ portrait into it--which he did. "Ippolito had, at all events," says one of his chroniclers, "some loveable and estimable qualities, and most of the historians have a good word for him."[9] Doubtless this was owing to the genuine love of letters which made the Medici the idols of the literati. Endowed by Clement the Seventh with immense wealth, he was, says Roscoe, "the patron, the companion, and the rival of all the poets, musicians, and wits of his time. Without territories and without subjects, Ippolito maintained at Bologna a court far more splendid than that of any Italian potentate. His associates and attendants, all of whom could boast of some peculiar merit or distinction which had entitled them to his notice, generally formed a body of about three hundred persons. Shocked at his profusion, which only the revenues of the church were competent to supply, Clement the Seventh is said to have engaged the _maestro di casa_ of Ippolito to remonstrate with him on his conduct, and to request that he would dismiss some of his attendants as unnecessary to him. 'No,' replied Ippolito, 'I do not retain them at my court because I have occasion for their services, but because they have occasion for mine.'" An answer worthy of a Medici, "His translation of the Eneid into Italian blank verse is considered one of the happiest efforts of the language, and has been frequently reprinted. Amongst the collections of Italian poetry, also, may be found some pieces of his composition, which do credit to his talents."[10] [9] T. A. Trollope. [10] Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici. Some of his pieces may be found in Crescembini, Della volgare Poesia, ii. 11. One morning, when it was discovered that many valuable statues in Rome had been broken and defaced during the night, the Pope was so incensed at it that he gave orders that whoever had committed the outrage, unless it should prove to be Cardinal Ippolito, should be hanged. This looks as if he were not quite sure that Ippolito might not be the culprit. However, the offender proved to be Lorenzino de' Medici; and it required all Ippolito's influence with the Pope to get him off.