[Illustration: _Anderson photo_] [_Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome_
The idea of the splendour of the Pope's court has fascinated the painter, and round the beautiful girl, who was its centre, he has grouped other remarkable personages who must have struck him there. The sad-eyed, bitter-looking man in Greek dress, who stands on the left in the foreground, is said to be Andrea Paleologos, commonly called the Despot of Morea, nephew and heir of the unfortunate Emperor Constantine, under whose rule Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks. Andrea had with his father, taken refuge at the Papal court some twenty years earlier; they had brought with them a precious gift--the bones of St. Andrew--and the hospitality of successive Popes had been extended to them. Andrea could never forget his former grandeur or reconcile himself to his position, though, as he made profit out of his hereditary rights in many petty ways, he was held in little repute. Certainly the resentful, brooding expression, the isolated air, accords well with the descriptions of the disappointed, disinherited man, standing silent and moody while the gay court of the Renaissance is unheeding of him. This interesting attribution is now questioned by some authorities.
[Illustration: _Anderson photo_] [_Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Rome_
ST. CATHERINE (A detail from the "Dispute of St. Catherine")]
In the British Museum are drawings of a Turk and a Turkish woman, both seated cross-legged. The drawing of the man serves for the Janissary in the "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian," reversed, and the arm slightly altered.
At Frankfort is a drawing of an Albanian, and also the one from which the alleged portrait of the Despot of Morea is taken.
In the Louvre are two drawings of Turks and one of a Turkish woman. Here we find the Turk standing on the Emperor's left hand, and supposed to be the Sultan Djem.
All these drawings appear to be by the same hand and done at the same time--alike in size and style. The two in the British Museum have been ascribed to Gentile Bellini, and are believed to have been sketches made by him in Constantinople. They have all the appearance of being from life. There are touches of reality in the under-robe of the Turk, the wrinkles in his face and the muscles of the neck, which entirely disappear when the sketch is transferred to the plaster wall. The question then arises, Did Pintoricchio transfer drawings by Bellini straight into his fresco, or can we entertain the opinion advanced by Signor A. Venturi, that the drawings are not by Bellini at all, but by Pintoricchio himself?[26]