After the tapestries were finished and sent home, the originals, for some reason which can now be only conjectured, seem to have lain neglected in the warehouse of the manufacturers. The proba

bility, however, is, that both Raffaelle and his patron, Leo, had died in the interim. The latter was succeeded by Adrian VI., who, though a scholar and a man of exemplary moral character, was either indifferent to the arts which had shed lustre on the pontificate of his predecessor, or wholly occupied with the difficult political and ecclesiastical affairs of the period. Whatever may have been the cause of the extraordinary neglect of these immortal productions, the fact appears certain.

Of the twenty-five Cartoons, seven of the smaller size (for they were of different dimensions) were purchased by Charles the First, at the suggestion, it is said, of Rubens; and have happily remained in this country through every subsequent change. That tasteful and munificent sovereign determined to employ them as originally intended: five of them, if not the entire number, were delivered, for hangings to be woven from them, to Francis Cleyne, an artist whom King James had placed at the head of the tapestry works established by him at Mortlake.

When the Royal Collections were sold in 1649, Cromwell, already in possession of the palaces of the kings of England, became the purchaser of the Cartoons, the most precious of their ornaments, for 300l., the sum at which they were appraised by the Council of State. The standard of public taste and knowledge in art must have sunk very low, when the mere name of Raffaelle could not secure for this unrivalled series a more considerable sum; unless, indeed, the known wish of Cromwell to possess them prevented competition. The fact, no doubt, was, that the greater part of those who would otherwise have gladly become purchasers, at a price more proportioned to the merit of the works, had, by recent events, been deprived of the means; and that the party into whose hands the power and wealth of the country had been transferred were not inclined to dispose of their riches in this way.

Nothing further was known respecting the Cartoons, till the time of William III., when they were found carelessly packed in boxes, having been cut into pieces for that purpose. Being in a very damaged state, the king, with a commendable, but injudicious zeal for their preservation, ordered them, with other pictures in the Royal Collection, to be

repaired the artist to whose hand they were consigned for that purpose was William Cook. King William built the gallery at Hampton Court for their reception; where they remained undisturbed till the year 1764, when they were removed to Buckingham House. From Buckingham House they were, in 1787, transferred to Windsor; but in the year 1814 were restored to King William's Gallery, at Hampton Court, which they now occupy.

The tapestry imitations of their illustrious master's designs, executed by Van Orlay and Coxis, had not been long placed in the Vatican, when they were carried away, in the sack of Rome, by Bourbon's army, in the year 1526; but were restored during the pontificate of Julius III. by the Duke of Montmorenci, as is attested by an inscription upon the borders of the tapestries, numbered 6 and 9, in the preceding note.* From this time they appear to have been kept secluded from view in the guardaroba, or wardrobe, of the popes, except on certain solemn occasions, when they were exhibited

* Urbe captâ partem aulæorum a prædonibus distractorum Conmestabilis Anna Montmorencius, Galliæ militum præfectus, restaurandam atque Julio III. P. M. restituandam curavit.

for the admiration of the assembled people. The annual custom of suspending them in the great portico of St. Peter's, on the festival of Corpus Christi, was first introduced in the reign of Paul IV. Another occasion on which they were exhibited was at the beatification of a Romish saint, (or the solemn announcement that he is enrolled in heaven), a ceremony which always precedes his canonization. The period during which they were exposed to public view before St. Peter's was three days; after which they were hung up in an apartment within the Vatican for a few days more, before being again consigned to the usual receptacle. This continued to be the custom till the invasion of Italy by the French, in 1798, when they became part of the plunder of the conquerors.* Being, however, restored to the Vatican by purchase in 1814, the annual exhibition, on the feast of Corpus Christi, has been resumed, and, instead of the former limited display, they are now constantly open to public inspection in the chamber of Pope Pius V.

*

They were sold, with other objects of spoliation, to a Jew at Leghorn, by whom one was destroyed for the sake of the gold and silver threads worked into the fabric; this was the Descent into Hades, and is the only one now wanting to the set. The others were re-purchased for 13,000 crowns, and sent back to Pius VII.

The Cartoons at Hampton Court have been several times copied. Soon after their arrival in England, Francis Cleyne (already mentioned as the artist employed to superintend the royal manufactory at Mortlake) executed beautiful copies of them on a small scale, highly finished, with a pen. Cooke, whom King William III. employed to put in order the Royal Collection, made copies of them "in turpentine oil, in the manner of distemper, a way which he invented." Sir James Thornhill, indefatigable in whatever related to Raffaelle, employed three years on a set of copies the size of the originals, which were lately in the great room of the Royal Academy, having been presented to that body by the late Duke of Bedford, in 1800. Sir James likewise executed a smaller set, of one fourth the dimensions of the original pictures: where these latter are preserved is not known. There is a third set in the Picture Gallery at Oxford, which was given to the University by his Grace the Duke of Marlborough.

The only artist who has engraved the entire series is Sommereau; his plates are on a small scale, and in a style painfully minute: they are now rare. Michell Sorello, a native of Spain, is also said to have undertaken the complete series, but he does