The great artists, at their great period, led a very different life from that which they lead now: attached to the ceilings of the Vatican, to the walls of St. Peter's, to the partitions of the Farnese, they worked at their master-pieces suspended with them in mid-air. Raphael walked surrounded by his pupils, escorted by cardinals and princes, like a senator of Ancient Rome, preceded and followed by his clients. Charles V. sat thrice to Titian[578]. He picked up his brush, and yielded the right to him when walking, even as Francis I. attended Leonardo da Vinci[579] on his death-bed. Titian went in triumph to Rome; the immense Buonarotti received him there: at the age of ninety-nine, at Venice, Titian still held with a firm hand his century-old brush, the conqueror of the centuries. The Grand-duke of Tuscany[580] secretly disinterred Michael Angelo, who had died in Rome after laying, at the age of eighty-eight, the coping-stone of the cupola of St. Peter's. Florence, with a magnificent funeral, expiated on the ashes of its great painter the neglect which it had shown to the ashes of Dante, its great poet. Velasquez[581] twice visited Italy, and Italy twice rose to greet him. The precursor of Murillo[582] resumed the road to Spain laden with the fruits of that Ausonian Hesperia, which had fallen into his hands: he carried away a picture by each of the twelve most celebrated painters of that time. Those famous artists spent their days in adventures and feasting; they defended towns and castles; they built churches, palaces and ramparts; they gave and received mighty sword-thrusts, seduced women, took refuge in the cloisters, were absolved by the popes and saved by the princes. In an orgy described by Benvenuto Cellini we see the names figure of Michael Angelo and of Giulio Romano[583].