Slow News Days?

Reuters devotes a substantial amount of print (three Internet pages) this weekend to a story about Raphael's alleged affair with a baker's daughter. Link. Excerpt from the introductory paragraphs:

The tiny pearl brooch seems an innocuous detail in Raphael's enigmatic "Fornarina" portrait, but for one group of historians it unlocks a scandalous love affair kept secret for centuries.

According to new research published in May, the pearl, pinned onto an elaborate turban, is part of a web of allusions to the Renaissance artist's clandestine marriage to the beautiful sitter, a baker's daughter -- despite a very public engagement to the niece of a powerful Vatican cardinal.

Officially, Raphael died a bachelor at 37.

"It was an impossible love affair," says Maurizio Bernardelli Curuz, editor of specialist journal Stile, who led a year of research into Raphael's romantic riddle.

"It is hard to overstate Raphael's status in Rome -- he was a superstar. The distance separating them was like that which today would separate George Clooney and his cleaner."

The pearl, also included in the "Velata" portrait, suggests the sitter's name was Margherita -- the Latin word for pearl -- and not Maria Bibbiena, the artist's intended bride.

Hollywood apparently isn't providing enough sex scandal material these days.