ÆNEAS PICCOLOMINI SENT BY FREDERICK III. TO POPE EUGENIUS IV.]
This is the moment chosen for the fifth fresco, and gives the artist every scope for lively action and gay and brilliant colouring. Æneas, standing between the King and his young bride, is still the most prominent figure. The ladies of her train are grouped around the Infanta, as the attendant maidens round Mary in many a version of the "Sposalizio." Behind the Bishop stands a dignitary with a white cross on his breast, who we identify from Pintoricchio's lately finished portrait in the Baptistry, as Alberto Aringhieri, the Knight of Rhodes. The man on the left, with heavily-draped mantle and looped-up hat, is Hans Leubin, the King's Court poet, who had been appointed to deliver an address of welcome, which he is represented as just beginning to recite. Behind the group is set up, by a pardonable anachronism, the marble column which was afterwards placed there as a memorial of the meeting-place. On either side is a tall, stately plane-tree and a fruit-bearing palm, typical of the bridal pair. The road winds up to the Camollia gate, beyond which we espy the tall towers of the city, "Siena of the rosy walls and rosy towers," the cathedral with its dome and campanile, and the ground falling away into the ravine which lies between it and San Domenico.
Whether Raphael's inspiration really was withdrawn at this period, or whether Pintoricchio's own fancy flagged, it is undeniable that the remaining frescoes show a falling off, and are less satisfactory than the earlier ones. The next scene shows us "Æneas Silvius receiving the Cardinal's hat." On the ride to Rome with the bridal pair, Frederick had drawn rein as they came to the brow of the hill, from which they first looked down on the valley of the Tiber, and said to Æneas, "Look now--we go up to Rome; methinks I see thee a Cardinal, and in truth thy fortunes will not tarry there, thou shalt climb yet higher; St. Peter's chair awaits thee; look not down on me when thou shalt have reached that pinnacle of honour." And though Æneas modestly disclaimed such a prospect, he confessed afterwards how great were his efforts to enter the Sacred College. His hopes were frustrated by the reigning Pope Nicolas, who was notoriously unfriendly to him, and it was not till the election of Alonso da Borgia as Calixtus II. that he saw his way to further advancement. Calixtus, who was an old man and almost bedridden, appointed, among others, his kinsman, Roderigo Borgia (after Alexander VI.), as Cardinal. To this ambitious and intriguing man Æneas attached himself, and bade farewell to Germany and his royal patron.