A Fly

“How did he die?” Pope Leo X asked, his eyes still fixed on Sebastiano del Piombo’s Portrait of Cardinal Bandinello Sauli, His Secretary and Two Geographers (1516).
“Cardinal Sauli died in bed,” answered Giulio de’ Medici, one of the thirty-one cardinals Leo X had created in a single consistory.
“Peacefully?”
“Not exactly. After dinner, he vomited blood and collapsed. Then they carried him to his bed, where he died.”
“I always told him his cook was terrible, but his choice of painter was excellent. I had been thinking of returning this painting to him, but now…” Leo X said.
“You have already been generous enough to return all his confiscated property, even though he was allegedly involved in a conspiracy with Alfonso Petrucci and several other cardinals to poison Your Holiness.”
“His guilt wasn’t proven.”
“Because you halted the investigation. In the Vatican, people still whisper that Cardinal Sauli shared Petrucci’s anger when you appointed me and your other friends to the College of Cardinals.”
“That is enough,” the pope said.
His gaze remained fixed on the painting, as though an invisible thread bound him to it.
“Sauli has always envied me. When I was seven years old, a bishop shaved the crown of my head, and I became one of the chosen. At that age, he was still receiving nothing more than a simple haircut from his mother. By thirteen, I was already a cardinal. At that age, Sauli had not yet entered the world I was destined to rule.”
“You are great, and you are a Medici. I, my friend, have always stood behind you, and we always will, against all your enemies,” replied Cardinal de’ Medici.
“This painting is not merely a portrait. Sauli is not alone. He wanted to have a portrait like mine — the work of the incomparable Raphael.”
“Where was I when Raphael painted your portrait? I would have considered it an honor to stand beside you,” replied the cardinal.
“Yes…”
Suddenly, the pope tore his gaze away from the painting and looked directly into the cardinal’s eyes with a piercing intensity.
“Bring me a painter. I want him to paint a fly on Sauli's white rochet.”
“Do you wish to leave future generations a clue to his fallen reputation?”
“Not necessary. A pope must preserve balance among the cardinals and throughout the Church. A ruler who is not feared cannot preserve order.”
Before leaving the West Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., I looked at the painting one more time.
Could such a conversation have taken place? Or could Sebastiano del Piombo himself have painted the fly? In the painting, the cardinal is accompanied by two geographers. The small black fly was not merely a symbol of decay or mortality. It could have been something else—a subtle allusion to the Church’s growing fascination with the newly discovered lands across the Atlantic. Many mysteries still remain hidden beneath the thick layers of history.