RAPHAEL SANTI

LONDON
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BY

SPOTTISWOODE

NEW-STEEET SQUARE

AND

CO.

RAPHAEL

SANTI

His Life and His Works

BY ALFRED

BARON VON WOLZOGEN

TRANSLATED BY

F. E. B U N N E T T
TRANSLATOR OF GRIMM'S ' LIFE OF MICHAEL ANGELO' AND

GERVINUS'S

'SHAKESPEARE COMMENTARIES

LONDON
SMITH,

ELDER, & CO., 65
1866

CORNHILL

759.5
R12wEb

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

translated Grimm's 'Life of Michael
Angelo,' I was desirous of finding some memoir
of his great contemporary Eaphael, which might
complete the picture we already possess of a
period so rich in the history of Art.
HAVING

It was not easy to meet with a work which
was not too diffuse in its art-criticisms for the
ordinary reader, and until Wolzogen's 'Life of
Eaphael' appeared, there was no concise biography
of the great painter which seemed to me to
supply the information required.
It is for this reason that I have translated the
work; and I trust it will not be without interest
to those who have hitherto known Eaphael in his
art alone.
F . E. BUNNETT.

PREFACE.

EAPHAEL-LITERATURE

already fills a library of its

own. Extensive works, such as Passavant's ' Eafael
von Urbino und sein Vater Giovanni Santi' (three
volumes, with maps, Leipsic, 1839-58), are among
its treasures; but there is ever lacking a concise
summary of all the more important investigations
and decisions hitherto arrived at with regard to
the great master's life and works.

The best and

most spirited of these are for the most part,
moreover, in various papers and pamphlets, in
which Eaphael is not the sole subject.

Passavant

has only partially availed himself of this fragmentary material, and when he has done so, it
has been, in my opinion, in such a manner as to
admit at times of a different comprehension.

So

viii

PREFACE.

much, too, has appeared since the death of this
industrious author, which deserves to have a
place in a biography of Eaphael. Lastly, all the
works upon this master, even the most complete,
have, it appears to me, laid too little stress upon
his mission as regards the history of civilisation,
and upon the importance of his art both philosophically and historically, although Schelling
long ago drew attention to the subject.
This, therefore, must be my apology for the
publication of the present work. It originated in
four lectures, which I delivered for the Society
for the History of the Plastic Arts. Kaphael's
public is large: it was my aim to furnish, as
far as was possible, a complete picture of the
great master, without overloading the portrait
with too many detailed discussions. If, therefore,
much has been in consequence omitted, which is
of great interest to the special enquirer, I yet
ndulge the hope of having afforded to those
readers who desire from me neither an historical
novel, nor a work based on new archival in-

PREFACE.

ix

vestigations, an insight into much which every
cultivated man of the present day must desire to
know respecting Eaphael.
I have affixed to the end of the book rather
a full Appendix; and I would draw the reader's
attention to it, as it contains not only accurate
statements of my authorities, but many opinions,
differing from those usually received, are here
more closely entered into.
A . VON WOLZOGEN.
BKESLAU: January 1865.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I,
INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER II.
CHILDHOOD—EDUCATION—AND FIRST ATTEMPTS.

1483-1504.
The Santi Family—Birth of Eaphael—Giovanni Santi—Early Attempts
in Painting—Perugino's School of Art—Eaphael's Associates—His
Painting at Perugia—His Eeturn to Urbino—Paintings for the Citta
di Costella—Eeturn to Perugia—Eaphael leaves Perugino's Studio—
The «Sposalizio'—' Christ on the Mount of Olives'—Cartoons for Pinturicchio's Fresco Paintings—Attracted to Florence—Leonardo da
Vinci and Michael Angelo
PAGE 21
CHAPTER III.
RAPHAEL IN FLORENCE.

1504-1508.
Massaccio and the Modern Style of Italian Art—Eaphael's Impressions
in Florence—Power of Imitation in different Artists—The Influence
of the Florentine School on Eaphael—His First Painting in Florence
—His Eeturn to Perugia—His Paintings there—The Altar-piece at
Blenheim—Eaphael's Eeturn to Florence—Baccio d'Agnolo—Eaphael
goes to Bologna and Urbino—Splendid Court of Duke Guidobaldo—
* The Three Graces'—Eeturn to Florence—* The Entombment of
Christ' at Perugia—Baccio della Porta—Summoned to Eome by
Pope Julius II
34

Xll

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.
RAPHAEL IN ROME UNDER POPE JULIUS II.

1508-1513.
Raphael in Rome—Employed by Julius II. to paint the Apartments of
the Vatican—The Subjects chosen for the Sala della Segnatura—
The 'Disputa del Sacramento'—Various Opinions respecting this
Painting—The Principles of Artistic Idealism—' The School of
Athens'—Raphael's Advance in Painting—His Rules of .Art—Professor Braun on Raphael's 'Disputa'—Michael Angelo's Influence
upon his Art—Raphael and Michael Angelo—Raphael's Position in
Rome—La Fornarina—Raphael's Sonnets—His Betrothal with the
Niece of the Cardinal—Raphael paints a Portrait of himself for
Francesco Francia—Raphael undertakes the Second Hall of the
Vatican—' The Mass of Bolsena'—' The Deliverance of Peter'—' The
Attala'

PAGE

52

CHAPTER V.
RAPHAEL UNDER LEO X.

1513-1520.
Julius II. and Leo X.—The Loggie—The Cartoons—Raphael decorates
the Stanza dell' Incendio—The Sala di Costantino—The Sala de'
Palafrenieri—The Influences surrounding Raphael—The Court of
Leo X.—Raphael's Portraits—The Prophets and Sibyls—The Galatea
—Raphael's Views of Art—Raphael's Architectural Works—Appointed Architect of St. Peter's—His Design for the Court of the
Vatican—Passavant's Opinion of his Architectural Skill—The
Universality of his Genius—The Madonna della Sedia—Lo Spasimo
di Sicilia—The Madonna di San Sisto—The Transfiguration—
•Raphael's Illness and Death
.
.
.
.
.
,
.115
CHAPTER VI.
CONCLUDING

REMARKS.

RAPHAEL

SANTI.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

IN the history of the different arts, certain favoured
individuals come conspicuously forward, who, from
some especial gift of nature, are able to conceive and
to carry out the highest tasks of that art whose votaries
they are ; their productions, therefore, form the culminating point of that art; but such men only appear
when the art itself has gone through successive stages
of development—stages which seem to a certain extent
summed up in their works, and united in them into a
perfect whole.

These men form the central point of

this development; all the earlier efforts of the art converge in them, and they appear to posterity as models,
in whom the art has found the highest expression of its
ideas that the progress of the age would admit of. The
widening stream of life may present, in the future, tasks
B

2

EAPHAEL SANTI.

more comprehensive still for art to achieve; but we
shall ever look back upon those stars of light and
guidance as examples, in whom we may perceive that
perfect harmony of all the elements of life, which
found in them its expression and ideal image.
As in all individual development, there is a period at
which the man reaches his highest stage of perfection,
compared with which the past appears only as a time
of preparation and the future one of retrogression; so,
too, art has its highest point, at which its utmost power
and ability are displayed.

The characteristic of both

these analogous conditions lies in the perfect unbroken
power of the physical and intellectual life, in a state of
pure harmony with the conscious mental principle in
its phase of equal development.

There is an incon-

gruity, on the contrary, in the earlier and subsequent
life: in the one the life of sense predominates, in the
other that of the mind; the one is full of the impulses
of life, without the power of representing them; the
other exhibits the prevalence of reflection and study,
while the producing power gradually disappears or exhausts itself in works which, in spite of all grandeur
of conception, ay, in spite of all the fulness and
vigour of life which they exhibit, fail in perfect beauty,

THE GREAT MEN OF ART.

3

because either the prevailing idea contained in them has
completely absorbed everything that would affect the
senses, or this has counterbalanced the force of the idea.
These general remarks might be illustrated by the
history of any of the different arts, for these, being the
highest forms of civilisation, necessarily reflect the
process laid down by nature for the cultivation of man.
In such an examination, we should see the highest
points of the various branches of art attained by individual men who, equally favoured by natural gifts
and by the circumstances of life, have approached most
nearly to the pure conception of beauty; men who
have created in their art a standard imagined by their
predecessors, but no longer attainable by their posterity.
Such men, therefore, stand forth as singular phenomena:
all the fermenting and chaotic masses of ideas, struggling for form, order, and harmony, reveal themselves
to them in magic beauty as in a mirror; the views
and forms which a whole age endeavoured to obtain
amid dim and irreconcilable ideas, become for the first
time fully demonstrated in their works; and these
works, bathed in the very ether of beauty, exercise a
lasting influence upon the minds of all ages.

That

perfection to which Sophocles carried the tragic art
B2

4

RAPHAEL SANTI.

of the Greeks was attained by none after him; and
even Euripides, who was held in such esteem for his
power of reflection, for his wonderful ability to excite
and affect the mind of his audience, and for his impressive ease and magnificence of language, even he, in
spite of these brilliant qualities, falls far short of the
artistic beauty of his predecessor.

In the kingdom of

sound, Mozart stands forth as the type of perfect
harmony, because his universal gifts, his never-failing
instinct for art, joined to his inexhaustible ability for
work, allowed him not merely to give expression to the
various feelings of the mind, but to combine them
harmoniously into one united whole.
A similar position in the sphere of painting, I feel
compelled to claim for Eaphael: the universal and
therefore harmonious character of his mind was capable
of receiving all that art had obtained in the course of
its development; and, penetrating to the utmost the
various sources of culture and learning of his age, he
brought them, purified and refined, to bear on his own
undying works—works, in which, as it were, a mighty
past is concluded and a new epocn begins, and which,
at the same time, as the purest symbol of a life purified and satisfied in itself, are able to exercise an im-

RAPHAEL AND MOZAET.

5

perishable influence upon all nations, all forms of faith,
and all directions of taste.
If we would seek a parallel, none seems certainly
more fitting than that between Eaphael and Mozart.
Eochlitz and Alberti have already drawn such a parallel,*
and it is sanctioned also by Otto Jahn at the close of
his biography of Mozart, f
6

These are his words:—

That noble beauty which seems, as it were, to absorb

all other conditions of artistic representation, and to
resolve itself into pure harmony, appears so equally
triumphant in the works of these two masters, that,
had we not so many points in accordance in the history
of their life and education, and in their artistic and
moral nature, we should still scarcely fail to recognise
them as twin brothers.'

They were both c animated by

the spirit of truth, which breathes the breath of life
into the soul;' both were

e

conscientious in serious

work, and playful in the freedom of invention.'^ Their
one love was the production of that exalted beauty
in which, according to Schelling's profound expression,
c

the richness of the form cancels the form itself.'
Winckelmann compares beauty with water, which,
* See Appendix, note i.
\ See Appendix, notes iii. and iv.

f See Appendix, note ii.

EAPHAEL SANTL

6

drawn from the depths of the spring, is esteemed
salubrious in proportion to its tastelessness.

This

highest kind of beauty we might designate the characterless, jusfc in the same way as we say that ' t h e
universe has no definite limit, neither length, nor
breadth, nor depth, because it comprehends all in
equal infinity; or that the art of creative nature is
formless, because it is itself subject to no form.'

We

might call it characterless, therefore, in the same sense
as that in which we regard Hellenic art in its highest
stage, as exalted into the characterless, not having
directly striven after it, for it far rather wrestled with
the bonds of nature for this divine freedom.

It is

this highest kind of beauty, that is ideal beauty, which
is only produced as the ripest fruits of the characteristic style, and yet which must acknowledge the
characteristic as its real foundation and root—as its
'skeleton,' as it were;—for * form cannot be without
substance, and wherever form is, character is there also
in visible or in merely sensible presence.'

It is this

beauty which Eaphael and Mozart have pourtrayed
and represented in a manner far superior to all other
modern artists.

e

I t could have been,' says Schelling,

' no lightly scattered grain, but a deeply-seated seed,

PROGRESS OF ART.

7

which could have produced such a mighty growth.
It is only strong emotion of feeling, it is only a deep
affecting of the imagination by the sense of the allanimating, all-governing forces of nature, which could
bestow on art that invincible power with which it
ever adhered faithfully to truth, in its course from the
stiff reserved seriousness of the works of an earlier
age, to those overflowing with the grace of feeling,
investing the creations of the mind with the hignest
reality which is granted to mortals to behold.'
All those who, by the study of the characteristic
style of art, have risen to the simplicity and sublimity
of the so-called high style, must necessarily at some
time have passed through that epoch to which, among
the ancients, the tragedy of iEschylus belongs, and
which was marked by the severe hard style of the
plastic art, exhibited in the serious goddess Athene.
' In the statues of the most perfect or divine natures,'
says Schelling, further, (not only the utmost variety of
forms, of which human nature is capable, ought to be
combined, but the combination should also be of such
a kind as we might imagine in the universe itself, the
lower or those with lesser qualities under the higher,
and all at length drawn up under one highest, in

RAPHAEL SANTI.

8

which, as it were, they lose their individuality, though
in power and substance they still exist.

If, therefore,

we designate this high and self-sufficing beauty not
characteristic, in so far as regards the limitation of the
effect, still the characteristic element operates indiscernibly in its production, just as in crystal, transparent as it is, the texture nevertheless exists; every
characteristic element influences, however gently, and
helps to produce the sublime harmony of beauty.'
It was just this stage of development which was
reached by art at the period of its renaissance in
Italy, at the close of the Middle Ages.

Schelling de-

monstrates this in a spirited manner, bringing forward
Michael Angelo, Correggio, Kaphael, and others, as
examples.

Some of what he has there said I may be

allowed to repeat here, as I cannot better characterise
the position of the artist, who is to be the subject of
my consideration, among the other heroes of painting.
I am glad also of this opportunity of drawing the
attention of men of aesthetic taste to the almost forgotten paper by that profound philosopher,

Q

Ueber das

Verhaltniss der bildenden Kiinste zu der JSTatur.'

I

have borrowed the following extracts from it, for in it
the true difference between ideal and characteristic

IDEAL AND CHAKACTERISTIC BEAUTY.

9

beauty was first clearly presented to us, and upon this
distinction our judgment in all matters of art essentially depends.
< Michael Angelo,' says Schelling,* ' represents the
earliest and mightiest epoch of free art—that epoch in
which in vast productions it displays its yet unfettered
power.

As in the allegorical poems of the old world,

the Earth brought forth Titans and heaven-storming
giants at the embrace of Uranus, before the soft rule
of the peaceful deities began, so the work of the
Last Judgment—with which, as the essence of his art,
that giant mind filled the Sistine Chapel—seems to
remind us rather of the early ages of this earth and
their offspring, than of modern times.

Attracted by

the most secret principles of organic and especially of
human structure, he never avoided the terrible; he
sought it, indeed, intentionally, and roused it from its
repose in the dark workshops of nature.

Seriousness

of character and a natural power of thought must have
governed him far more than a perception of grace and
a sensibility of feeling, in thus blending the highest
attainments of pure plastic art with the painting of
modern times.
* See Appendix, note v.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

10

' When this first feeling of power is calmed and the
violent birth-throes stilled, then the rough spirit of
nature transforms itself into a feeling soul, and grace
bursts into life.

Art arrived at this stage after Leo-

nardo da Vinci's death through Correggio, in whose
works the sensuous side of beauty is exhibited.

Not

only is this apparent in the delicate outlines of his
figures, but also in his forms, which are for the most
part similar to those of a purely sensuous nature in
the works of the ancients.

The general expression of

this appeal to the senses is the chiaroscuro, which was
brought to greater perfection by Correggio than by any
other painter.
'When the barriers of nature are overcome—when
the love of the vast, the fruit of the first freedom, is
done away with—form and figure become beautified by
the instinctive yearnings of the soul; heavenly light
descends; and the soothed earthly forms combine with
the heavenly, and these again with all that is sweetly
human.

Eaphael takes possession of

the

bright

Olympus, and carries us away from earth to the assembly of the gods—beings permanent and blessed.
The prime of the most cultivated life, the sweet fragrance of imagination, and the vigorous power of mind,

KAPHAEL'S POSITION IN ART.

all breathe forth from his works.

11

He is no longer a

painter; he is at once a philosopher and a poet.

His

wisdom equals the power of his mind, and things are
ordered in the everlasting decrees just as he pourtrays
them.

In him, art has reached its goal; and as the

human and divine can be purely balanced at one point
alone, the stamp of uniqueness is impressed on his works.'
In a similar manner, only dwelling more on the contrast between the beautiful and the sublime, than upon
that between the ideal and the characteristic, Vischer
speaks of the uniqueness of Kaphael, as displaying the
purest style of Italian painting, adorned with all the
sweetness of grace.

(

Kaphael,' he says,* ' as regards

the fundamental source of the beautiful, stands allied
to the simply beautiful in contrast with the sublime;
as regards the different stages of style, he belongs to
the charming and touching style in contrast with the
high style; and as regards the tendency of his painting,
he takes the line of the relatively picturesque in contrast to that of the plastic art.

But standing on his

own platform, he grasps the form before him with a
depth and breadth and fulness very different to that
which Michael Angelo had done from his opposite
* See Appendix, note vi.

1-2

EAPHAEL SANTI.

point of view: he opens what had been closed before,
where the elements of the Divine had dwelt as the
secret life of love, and he brings it into rich action
and full energy of character : strong human souls in
strong frames step forth to the storm and excitement
of action, the spirit within acting as a mighty power;
and from the representation of the contest he raises
us to the enthroned majesty of divine greatness, and
to the pure atmosphere of marvellous inspiration.
Eaphael is not merely the painter of calm, touching,
lovely Madonnas, of Holy Families, and of charming
boy-angels, but equally so of powerful and animated
action, and, at the same time, of the highest glorification
and imaginative grasp of that ideal, which he raised
above everything earthly in the persons of Christ and
the Virgin, and which he followed as no other had
done through every stage. Thus, then, we cannot rank
him as belonging to the charming and touching style in
contrast to the high style, but he united the high style
with i t ; although this high style, when exclusively followed, as by Michael Angelo, obtains a degree of power
which is not possible in that harmony, in which the
sublime itself is beautiful, and which a Eaphael could
scarcely have desired.

That unity of grace and dignity

EAPHAEL'S POSITION IN AET.

13

which we found in Leonardo da Vinci, is extended in
Eaphael to an entire world, but in this world grace
prevails, prevails even over dignity.'
Eaphael's genius is here undoubtedly assigned its true
place in the history of art.

He stands absolutely and

alone at the culminating point of painting.

This,

however, does not exclude the fact, that though beauty
rests essentially in the just normal relation of things,
in which all the efforts of the mind appear in equal
harmony, these efforts may be exhibited with more
intensity and effect, when separately pursued by other
artists.

It does not exclude the fact, I say, that

Michael Angelo may be grander, Correggio more sweet
and tender, even Ghiido Eeni perhaps more spiritual,
than Eaphael; and that others may have brought other
points of art relatively to greater perfection than he
has done: just as, referring again to the analogy of
music, Beethoven may have surpassed Mozart in pure
instrumental music, and in the representation of that
mighty power which makes all the strings of the
human heart vibrate equally; and Grluck may have
attained in his operas now and then to a strain of the
simplest, holiest, and highest sublimity, not to be
found in the works of Mozart.

Nevertheless, such a

14

RAPHAEL SANTI.

consideration cannot drive either Eaphael or Mozart
from their true position.

For those high qualities,

which secure to other artists their well-deserved rank
for all ages, are never felt as lacking in these two
men; nay, they appear rather in them to be merely
adjusted, and as it were glorified, by that central idea
of beauty, which could not but allow them on some
points a more limited sphere of action than was enjoyed by those whose productions bear not the stamp of
perfect beauty to the same extent.
One more important point may be shown, in which
KaphaePs universally acknowledged greatness wonderfully agrees with Mozart's.

I will here quote a

beautiful passage of Gothe's, to be found in his
c

Einzelheiten, Maximen und Keflexionen.'

< Eaphael,'

he says,* ' is the purest of modern artists.

He is

thoroughly naive; the actual never comes with him
into conflict with the moral or the sacred.

The canva

on which he has depicted the Adoration of the Kings,
an exceedingly magnificent composition, represents an
entire world, from the oldest of the adoring kings to
the Moors and apes, amusing themselves on the
camels with apples.

The holy Joseph is here most

* See Appendix, note vii.

REQUIREMENTS OF ART.

15

naively characterised as foster-father, delighting over
the gifts received."'

What does Gothe mean by this ?

The word ' naivete ' may be easily misunderstood with
respect to artistic work, and we should fall into great
error if we were to identify it with labourless production.

The work of those artists whom we call naive,

is in nowise one of no labour; but that which is produced by them, has the effect of having been done
without labour, and in this lies its marvellous power.
A famous diplomatist once expressed himself thus:
4

The greatest masterpiece of diplomatic art is to make

men believe what they wish to believe.'

The same

expression will avail us here; and we may say, with
the same justice: that artist stands at the highest
point of his art, who by his works makes us believe
in that beauty which we each unconsciously recognise
as such.

We can, however, only influence men in

those beliefs, the germs of which lie already within
them.

6

Pensez-vous,' says the Pere Lacordaire most

eloquently in his

e

Conferences' in Notre-Dame in

c

Paris,* pensez-vous que j'aurais le don de vous faire
croire en Dieu, si le germe de cette croyance ne vivait
pas au fond de votre cceur ? De meme que nulle force
* See Appendix, note viii.

16

KAPHAEL SANTI.

chimique ne peut tirer des corps que les elements qu'ils
renferment, de meme cette grande alchimie de la persuasion ne peut susciter dans notre esprit que des
verites indigenes; et si les livres sacres ont pris possession du monde, c'est que le monde portait dans son sein
des traditions sacrees dont ces livres ne sont que l'expression plus ou moms pure, plus ou moins corrompue.
Tout livre sacre est livre traditionnel; on le venerait
avant qu'il fut, il existait avant de naitre.'

Now

perfectly analogous with the books which we designate as sacred, is the case of those revelations of the
highest genius which we call naive.

With all the

artistic labour which they have bestowed on the
creation of their works, they still appear, inasmuch
as they have been created without reflection, not as
anything artistically produced, but as the expression
of a certain original type of the beautiful, the true,
and the good, which has for ages slumbered yearningly in every soul.

We see them, and we exclaim

involuntarily, 'How have I imagined, painted, or
chiselled this in my own soul!'

Its mere existence

is enough to convince every one of its genuineness.
For such manifestations of original genius possess this
too in common with the sacred writings, that no

THE IMPRESSION PRODUCED BY WORKS OF ART.

17

attacks made upon them lessen on the whole our
faith in them.

A man may write what he will against

the Bible, but it ceases not to be the Book of Books
for the Christian world, that book on which all the
civilisation of the present day depends; a man may
find fault as he will with Homer, Eaphael, Shakespeare, Grothe, and Mozart, but they still remain as
they are—unalterably great

And because it demands

no special effort to believe in their excellence and
uniqueness, the unbiassed critic, that is, he who is
uninitiated in the mysteries of artistic work, feels
himself inclined to suppose that the artists who have
produced such works, have produced them without
any effort.

How often do we not hear the opinion

expressed of productions such as these, which have
received
4

the

enthusiastic

applause

of

centuries,

There is really no art in this; I could have done

just the same!'

Now, when such a verdict is uttered

in simplicity, we may be assured that the highest
art has been reached.

Gothe says in his 'Zahmen

Xenien' :
Yes, this is the course we go:
That we do not know
When we think,
What we think—
Like a gift the thoughts do flow.
C

RAPHAEL SANTI.

18

Such is the poetic interpretation of the impression
produced upon us by works of art of the highest or
naive style.

They appear to us as if inspired, as if

they had originated by mere intuition; or, to use an
expression employed in one of the fictitious letters
published under Eaphael's name, c as if produced in a
pleasant dream.' * The artist seems never during his
work to have thought of tormenting his brains as to
the manner of his representation, and therefore the
author of the letter alluded to, makes Eaphael say,
' During my work I have always thought more of the
subject than of how I should represent it.'

By this,

however, we only mean that the master completely
entered into the subject of his work, and that t ^ i
means for pourtraying this subject presented themselves to him naturally.

And hence we always feel

inclined to consider that supremacy which Eaphael
exercised over all minds, a supremacy bordering on
the marvellous, not as the necessary result of his own
laborious effort, but as the glorious reward of his
innate personal amiability, and as a free gift which
heaven bestows on its especial favourites, in common
* See Appendix, note ix.

RAPHAEL'S CAREER,

19

with physical beauty and a life free from struggle and
earthly misery.

Still, however, we may suppose a long

and continuous process of development in Eaphael's
case, and this to a far higher extent than is ordinarily
conceded; for no artistic perfection is attained at a
trifling cost; and he who, like Eaphael, arrives at that
rare freedom which makes the thing acquired appear
as if naturally

produced, must necessarily have la-

boured more, and more successfully in its completion,
than others,* But then the capacity for this successful
work must have dwelt within him, for many torment
themselves with much endeavour without ever reaching
any definite aim, and it is left for genius alone to pronounce everywhere and for ever its Caesarian, c Veni,
vidi, vici.'
In indicating the main basis on which Eaphael's
wonderful individuality rests, the words occur to me
which Anton Springer expressed in a public lecture
delivered at Bonn on February 8, 1860:— c No artist's
life passed so completely and immediately in artistic
work as Eaphael's.

The essence of the

beautiful

seems indeed to have belonged to him as a personal
quality.' f
* See Appendix, note x.

t See Appendix, note xi.
C 2

20

RAPHAEL SANTI.

He never felt those burdens of life which so often
impede human effort.

Because ive, on the contrary, as

work-day natures, can only rise at times to that perfect
purity of soul mirrored in all the creations of Eaphael—
because in our restless striving we are thrown into the
hard rude contrarieties of daily life, while an eternal
holiday-mood prevailed with him, our aesthetic perceptions may turn to various other men in the history
of art, as to more kindred natures; but if we at length
attain to true peace of heart, we shall then find repose
in the depth of those spiritual beings, free from struggle
and desire, created for eternity by the divine mind of
Eaphael, for such it was designated by his admiring
contemporaries.
With this opinion, with this supposition, who would
undertake to delineate such a character even in its
general features ? I shall content myself, therefore,
with calling to remembrance the outline of his outward life.

A complete aesthetic estimate of the great

master cannot be thus afforded, but it will furnish a
basis for this, while it intimates the principal circumstances of his life.

21

CHAPTER II.
CHILDHOOD—EDUCATION—AND FIRST ATTEMPTS.
1483-1504.
THE SANTI FAMILY—BIRTH OF RAPHAEL—GIOVANNI SANTI—EARLY
ATTEMPTS IN PAINTING—PERTJGINO'S SCHOOL OF ART—RAPHAEL'S
ASSOCIATES

HIS PAINTING AT PERUGIA

HIS RETURN TO URBINO—

PAINTINGS FOR THE CITTA DI COSTELLA—RETURN TO PERUGIA
RAPHAEL LEAVES PERUGINO's STUDIO—THE SPOSALIZIO—CHRIST ON
THE MOUNT OF OLIVES

CARTOONS FOR PINTURICCHIO'S FRESCO

PAINTINGS—ATTRACTED TO FLORENCE—LEONARDO DA VINCI AND
MICHAEL ANGELO.

EAPHAEL, OR BAPHAELLO,

as he himself wrote the name,

sprung from a family, the eldest known ancestor of
which, Sante by name, appears in the records of Colbordolo, a small town of Umbria, about the early part
of the fourteenth century.

His descendants received

from him the family name del Sante, or Santi, and it
was not until subsequently, in Vasari's time, that, according to Italian custom, the name was translated to
Sanzio, from the Latin Sanctius.

The great-grandson

22

RAPHAEL SANTI.

of that Sante was Griovanni Santi, the father of Kaphael, who moved in the year 1450, with his grandfather Peruzzolo, to the larger city of Urbino, situated
close to the highest summit of the Apennines, just
where they separate the March of Ancona from Tuscany
and Umbria.

Here, in the Contrada del Monte,

Eapbael first saw the light, on Good Friday, March
28, 1483. He was the third of four children, who,
however, all died young.

His mother was Magia

Ciarla, the daughter of a thriving merchant in Urbino ; she died on October 7, 1491. On August 1, 1494,
her son was left fatherless also.

That

Griovanni'

Santi was a good painter, the executor of many altarpieces in the churches throughout the March of Ancona,
at Sinigaglia, Pesaro, Fano, and Montefiore, as well as
in Urbino and in the surrounding neighbourhood, is
equally well known as that he left behind him a
rhyming chronicle, a biography in terzine of

his

honoured patron, the Duke Federico da Montefeltro,
Lord of Urbino—a composition which is preserved in
the Vatican among the Ottobonian manuscripts.

Ab

all events, these remains testify that Messer Griovanni
held an honourable place among those highly cultivated artists of old, who were equally active with the

EARLY ATTEMPTS IN PAINTING.

brush and the pen.

23

On May 25, 1492, he married

Bernardina, the daughter of the goldsmith Pietro di
Parte; but the character of his second wife was less
affectionate than that of Magia, and after her husband's
death she was a frequent cause of vexation to her
stepson.
I t is not to be doubted that Eaphael received his
first instruction in painting from his father, and that
the latter himself perceived the great talent of his son.
He took the boy with him in a journey he made to
Cagli between 1492 and 1494, when he undertook the
task of adorning with frescoes the family chapel of
Pietro Tiranni, in the church formerly called
John's, and now that of the Dominicans.

St.

These

frescoes belong to his best works, and it is more than
probable that Eaphael had a helping hand in them.
Nothing, unfortunately, has been preserved of Eaphael's earliest independent attempts, and even any
information respecting them in the old manuscripts
at Urbino, is quite uncertain.

It is said that, as a

boy, he was employed in the decoration of the chapel
of the Galli family in the church of San Francesco—a
chapel now in ruins; that he painted an interesting
picture, a tempera, in the monastery of Santa Chiara,

RAPHAEL SANTI.

24

and other things—stories which are all just as indefinite and devoid of authenticity, as that which has
been transmitted to us respecting his early training.
After the death of his father in 1494, he was
consigned to the care of his guardian and uncle, the
ecclesiastic Don Bartolommeo Santi, and to that of his
stepmother, neither of whom, however, knew how to
awaken the confidence of the tender-hearted child. His
affections turned principally to his uncle on the mother's
side, Simone di Battista Ciarla, whom throughout his
life he addressed in his letters as ' beloved like a father'
(Carissimo in locho de Patre), and whom he held
in hearty reverence.

Luca Signorelli and Timoteo

Viti are mentioned as his first teachers in painting;
and the latter of these, returning to Urbino from
the atelier of Francesco Francia at Bologna, is said to
have painted the portrait of Eaphael when twelve
years old—a picture now in the Borghese Gallery in
Eome.
It was probably in this same year that the boy was
placed in Perugia, under the instruction of Pietro
Vannucci della Pieve, called Perugino.

This chief

master of the Umbrian school, whose character, according to Eumohr's striking expression, was marked

KAPHAEL'S ASSOCIATES.

25

by c stainless purity of soul, by the highest aspirations,
and by feeling, sweetly sad and enthusiastically tender,'
—this master had been the pupil of Niccolo Alunno of
Fuligno and the Florentine Andrea Verrocchio; and
now, standing on the highest pinnacle of his fame, he
had gathered round him a great number of distinguished pupils.

Eaphael attached himself warmly to

some of these, and soon surpassed them all.

Among

his especial associates were Andrea di Luigi of Assisi,
called l'Ingegno, and Domenico di Paris Alfani, to
whom Eaphael gave a design in 1508 as a sketch for
an altar-piece, which Domenico had to execute at
Perugia.*

There were besides, Cesare di Francesco

Eossetti,f a famous goldsmith at Perugia, who is said
to have instructed our artist in architecture, Graudenzio
Ferrari of Balduccio, many works of value by whom
are preserved in the Milanese city Brera, and others.
Eaphael appears also to have been intimate at that
time with Bernardino di Betti of Perugia, surnamed
II Pinturicchio, although the latter, having been born
in 1454, and therefore only eight years younger than
Perugino, who was born in 1446, could scarcely have

* See Appendix, note xii.

f See Appendix, note xiii.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

26

been a pupil of that artist.

Among the earliest works

completed by Eaphael at Perugia, there is a small
picture, a tempera, with a gold ground, in imitation of
a large altar-piece painted by Perugino for the church
Santa Maria de' Fossi in that city.

The picture re-

presents Christ as a child with St. John, and it is still
preserved as an interesting relic in the sacristy of the
church San Pietro Maggiore at Perugia.

The sketch-

book in the academy at Venice contains other studies
by Eaphael after his master.
Very soon Perugino made use of his assistance in
works of importance; his picture of the ' Birth of
Christ,' which was formerly in the church of the
Minori riformati della Spineta at Todi, and is now
in the Vatican, decidedly betrays Eaphael's hand, as
does also the picture of the

c

Eesurrection of Christ,'

painted for the church of the Franciscans at Perugia,
but now likewise in the Vatican, and the six divisions
of the altar-piece painted for the Certosa, near Pavia,
and now partly in the possession of the Duca Melzi at
Milan.

In the first-mentioned picture, it is especially

the head of Joseph, and in the last the two archangels Michael and Eaphael with Tobias, which may
be ascribed with certainty to the youthful Eaphael.

RETURN TO URBItfO.

27

In the year 1499, he returned to Urbino to settle
the disputes which had arisen between his stepmother
and guardian, and he had the delight of lastingly
restoring family peace by his sweet and gentle behaviour.

He received his first independent order with

the beginning of the new century.

The Citta di

Castello commissioned him, as Messer Perugino had
gone to Florence on business, to paint a banner for
a procession, which is still preserved, and a Crucifixion with four saints in adoration, for the church of the
Holy Trinity.

This latter work came into the collec-

tion of Cardinal Fesch at Rome, and has been, since
1847, in Lord Ward's gallery in London.

To these

may be added the order for a picture for the church of
St. Augustine in the same city,—the heavenly coronation
of the wonder-working hermit Nicholas of Tolentino—
a picture since destroyed—and also a

commission

from the Gravari family to paint a large altar-piece
for their chapel in the church of the Dominicans at
Citta di Castello, representing Christ on the Cross,
surrounded by the Virgin, St. John, Mary Magdalene,
and Hieronymus.

This picture also fell into the pos-

session of Cardinal Fesch, and subsequently into that
of Lord Ward.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

28

After the completion of these works Eaphael returned to Perugia, where he executed several pictures,
large and small, entirely in Perugino's style.

Among

these we may number the small picture of the
' Madonna,' which passed from the Solly collection
into the Berlin Museum; and also the ' Madonna' in
the possession of the Countess Anna Alfani at Perugia ;
the ' Madonna with the Infant Christ;' < St. Jerome
and St. Francis,' in the collection of the Archduke
Charles at Vienna; the now much damaged ' Adoration of the Magi,' painted for the Abbey Church at
Ferentillo, between Spoleto and Terni, but in the
Berlin Museum since 1825 ; and the e Sleeping Knight,'
attended by two allegorical female figures, one of
whom, holding before him sword and book, calls him
to undertake deeds of chivalry, while the other is
extending flowers to him as a symbol of the sensual
enjoyment of life.
Gallery in London.

This picture is in the National
Among other works belonging

to the same period, we may reckon a small painting
of the Madonna in the Casa Connestabile at Perugia;
some predelli, such as the ' Baptism and Eesurrection
of Christ,' from the Inghirami house at Volterra, now
in the Pinakothek at Munich; the

6

Adoration of the

THE SPOSALIZIO.

29

Kings ' in the castle of Christiansburg at Copenhagen ;
a half-length of St. Sebastian, in the possession of
Count Gruglielmo Lochis at Bergamo, and fifteen or
sixteen more small paintings.*
It is to be supposed that in the year 1504, Eaphael
formally quitted Perugino's studio.

He now again

repaired to Citta di Castello, where he painted for the
church of the Franciscans the ( Sposalizio,' known to all
the world by Longhi's engraving, and now the ornament of the Brera in Milan.

In this picture we see

Perugino's style and sense of beauty already really surpassed by the youth, who had so completely made them
his own, although he still seems governed by the influence of his master.f

Vasari justly points out that the

circular temple surrounded with columns, seen in the
background, must be regarded as a wonderful proof of
the ease with which the young artist, even at that time,
could conquer the greatest difficulties in perspective
drawing.

The style indeed of this architecture is so

pure, all the details are so justly proportioned, and
executed with such delicacy, that in this work we can
scarcely fail to perceive the beginnings of an independent exercise of his genius.
* See Appendix, note xiv.

t See Appendix, note xv.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

30

In the same year, Eaphael again returned to his
native city, and painted some small pictures for Duke
Gruidobaldo of Urbino.

These paintings are, ' Christ

on the Mount of Olives'—a picture which, since the
year 1847, has been in the possession of Mr, W.
Fuller Maitland at Stanstead, in the county of Essex,
' St. George and the Dragon,' now in the Louvre, and
' St. Michael combating the Monster,' in the same
place.

About this time Pinturicchio, who had been

entrusted by Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius III., with the execution of the fresco
paintings in the library of the cathedral at Siena,
sent for Eaphael to this city; and it is certain—not,
indeed, as Vasari falsely states in his 'Life of Pinturicchio,' * that he made all the sketches" and cartoons for the fresco paintings of the mature master
of fifty years of age—but that he executed two larger
finished designs from the sketches of the latter, from
which, however, Pinturicchio deviated in some points
when he transferred them to the wall and coloured
them, f

One cartoon, now in the Uffici, represents

JEneas Silvius Piccolomini accompanying Cardinal

* See Appendix, note xvi.

t See Appendix, note xvii.

ATTRACTED TO FLORENCE.

31

Capranica to the Council at Basle; the other cartoon,
in the possession of the Baldeschi family at Perugia,
represents the meeting of the Emperor Frederic III.
and his bride, Eleonora of Portugal, at the Porta
Camollia at Siena.
Vasari relates that Eaphael only discontinued his
work in furnishing designs for Pinturicchio, because
he heard from some artists in Siena the praise of the
cartoon which the famous Leonardo da Vinci, at that
time fifty-three years of age, had just completed for
the fresco paintings of the Sala del Consiglio in the
Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, in competition with that
of Michael Angelo, then thirty years of age.

The

cartoon of the former represented an attack of cavalry
in the contests between the Milanese and the Florentines ; that of the latter a group of bathing soldiers
summoned to the battle—an .episode in the wars between Pisa and Florence: and both artists excelled
especially in an art at that time almost unknown to
the young Eaphael —that of pourtraying the naked
figure.
Quatremere de Quincy* has demonstrated in a few
* See Appendix, note xviii.

32

RAPHAEL SAJNTI.

words what was the unusual power of attraction possessed by that new manifestation of Florentine art.
< To understand this well,' he says, 6 we must form a
just idea of the method and style of drawing which at
that time prevailed, with few exceptions, in all the
schools. The customs of the time had not favoured
the study of the human body, nor had the prevalence
of religious subjects and the habits of religious decency
made it appear especially necessary.

Equally little

had the statues of the antique, existing at that time in
so small a number, had any influence in bringing about
a perfect knowledge of the naked figure.* A certain
truth universally prevailed, but it never rose above
that which belongs to portrait painting.

While similar

faces were preserved, the different costumes of the age
were copied with accuracy and routine. Whatever there
was of the naked figure, consisted of an outline of the
contour, without articulation, or any true arrangement
of the muscles.

The ease of the drawing corresponded

with that of the composition.

The painter was afraid

of venturing to select a scene requiring any contrast of
position, and exhibiting the human body in attitudes

* See Appendix, note xix.

GOES TO FLOKENCE.

33

more or less difficult to conceive, in manifold groups
or complicated situations, by which a bold effect might
be produced.' *
This new acquisition of art was exhibited for the
first time by the cartoons just mentioned.

The study

of the antique and of anatomy had broken through the
old traditionary rules, and with the new resources thus
afforded

for picturesque representation, there went

hand in hand the devising of new subjects, such as
would never have been ventured upon by the more
timid artists of the past and of his own day.
And could such a work, such an immense advance in
art, be indifferent to a painter of Eaphael's endowments and aspirations ? Nay, it drew him irresistibly
to Florence, although he had no mission there of any
kind—and, indeed, probably brought with him no other
recommendation than that which lay in his amiable
and gifted nature.*
* See Appendix, note xx.

D

RAPHAEL SANTI.

34

CHAPTER III.
RAPHAEL IN FLORENCE.
1504-1508.
MASSACCIO AND THE MODERN STYLE OF ITALIAN ART—RAPHAEL'S
IMPRESSIONS IN FLORENCE—POWER OF IMITATION IN DIFFERENT
ARTISTS—THE INFLUENCE OF THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL ON RAPHAEL
HIS FIRST PAINTING IN FLORENCE—HIS RETURN TO PERUGIA—
HIS PAINTINGS THERE
RETURN

TO

THE ALTAR-PIECE AT BLENHEIM—RAPHAEL'S

FLORENCE—BACCIO D'AGNOLO

RAPHAEL

GOES

TO

BOLOGNA AND URBLNO—SPLENDID COURT OF DUKE GUIDOBALDO—
c

THE THREE GRACES '—RETURN TO FLORENCE—' THE ENTOMBMENT

OF CHRIST' AT PERUGIA—BACCIO

DELLA PORTA—SUMMONED TO

ROME BY POPE JULIUS I I .

ONE of the most striking proofs of the healthy nature
of Raphael's mind is the fact that, with all his marvellous capacity for learning and assimilation, he ever
avoided most carefully any leap in the regular progressive development of his genius.
have favoured him here also in an

Fortune may
extraordinary

manner; at any rate, she smiled upon a worthy
disciple, and one specially called to attain perfection.

MASSACCIO.

35

Tradition informs us that while in Florence he
studied thoroughly, beyond all else, the works of
Massaccio, the true founder of the modern school of
Italian painting.

This artist had been dead for more

than half a century; but the efforts after life-like
truth, characteristic expression, and natural simplicity
—in a word, after that picturesque completeness in
which the later Florentine artists excelled—are manifested in him most effectively.*

If he did not, per-

haps, possess the full power of the sublime, he towered
far above the modest grace and tender feeling of the
Umbrian school.

Fine drawing, an accurate study of

nature, composition, abundance of characters, individual distinctions, and animated action—all these stand
out, in his famous fresco paintings in the church of
the Carmelites at Florence, like a new revelation in
art, making ready the way for the great deeds of
Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo, until Eaphael
at length, from his starting-point of pure beauty,
grasped the whole, and led on to the perfection of art.
Mighty were the impressions which the youth received in beholding so much that was new; still,
* See Appendix, note xxi.
I> 2

36

RAPHAEL SANTI.

however, he did not at once disengage himself from
Perugino's style and the Umbrian school; and the
reason for this lay not only in his hearty reverence for
his master, and in his long use and thorough appropriation of the method of the latter, but especially in
the fact—a fact which will always distinguish true
genius from mere superficial talent—that it was impossible to him to become a mere formal copyist of
others.

If he would really learn from the Florentines,

and especially from the great Leonardo da Vinci, with
all his science and art—from that man who required
that the painter should carry the world in his mind
before he should undertake to represent it—he must
have gone through all that which Vasari describes.*
6

When,' as Vasari says, ' he first saw Leonardo's works,

he stood before them perfectly amazed and astonished;
they pleased him at once better than all he had seen
before, and he felt, therefore, impelled to a deeper
study of them; but, in spite of this, it was only with
great effort and infinite labour that he succeeded in
leaving Perugino's style, and imitating that of Leonardo.'
* See Appendix, notes xxii. and xxiii.

IMITATION.

37

Genius manifests itself in this also, that it alone possesses the capacity of adopting the individual style of
a master and bringing it to still higher perfection,
without allowing it to degenerate into mannerism.
' The pupil, on the other hand, who has neither genius
nor inward call to become himself a master, in the
full meaning of the word, propagates, it is true,' as
Vischer says,* < the style of his master, but by degrees
he lowers it to mere mannerism, because the genius
is lacking which ought to [fill his figures. Thus the
sweet smile in the female faces of Leonardo da Vinci
has often become an affected simper with artists of
the Milanese school; and thus both Michael Angelo's
power and Correggio's grace and rapture have proved
paths of decline, and a false style of power and a false
mannerism of grace and sickly sentimentality have
arisen.

We must not, however, therefore suppose that

the individual style, as soon as it passes into the hand
of another, necessarily degenerates into mannerism;
this happens only with pupils deficient in genius or in
mental vigour, and still more in consequence of an
unfavourable condition of things, when art in general
* See Appendix, note xxiv.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

38

is on the decline.

The skilful pupil, called as he is

himself to great achievements, carries on the style to
its perfection until he surpasses it, as Eaphael did that
of Perugino.

Before he displays his own independent

power, he may adopt for a short period the more
advanced style of another master; and this first style,
thus appropriated, corresponds with that which, with
other beginners (especially poets), is the stormy burst of
nature which belongs to the period of commencement.
Thus, in the course of Eaphael's development, we
trace three stages of style—namely, that of his first
master Perugino, which marks his childhood ; the Florentine,

which belongs to the period

approaching

maturity; and the Roman, which stamps his mature
works.'
Thus we find ourselves now at the commencement
of the second period in Eaphael's career, in which,
joined to his incomparable genius and the great
correctness, grace, and tenderness of design he had
already attained, he displayed that peculiar warmth
of colouring which distinguishes the Umbrian school.
It was necessary for him now, in the first place, to
throw aside the restraint of his master Perugino—a
master exclusively absorbed in heavenly devotion and

INFLUENCE OF FLORENTINE SCHOOL ON RAPHAEL. 39

in the glories of the next world, and bringing the
ideal of fervent feeling alone to perfection—and, having
done this, gradually to cultivate the other sides of
painting, especially the representation of individual
character and the variety of human life.
The ' Madonna del Granduca,' one of the first pictures painted by Eaphael in Florence, has in it a tone
somewhat grander than belonged to the sad dreamy
paintings of the Perugino school.

At about the same

period also we may place the ' Madonna surrounded by
Three Children,' a painting which belonged to the Duca
di Terranuova, and was purchased by the Berlin
Museum in 1855; the small hasty sketch of a Madonna, naif life-size, in the possession of Lord Cowper
at Penshanger in Hertfordshire, where the Virgin is
sitting on a stone seat with her head inclined sideways,
holding the infant Christ with her left hand, while the
right rests on her lap, on which the child is standing
with his arms round his mother's neck; * and, lastly,
the portrait of a youth about eighteen or twenty years
old, of the family of Leonardo del Eiccio in Florence^
from which family King Lewis of Bavaria sprung.

* See Appendix, note xxv.

f See Appendix, note xxvi.

40

RAPHAEL SANTI.

Many commissions compelled Eaphael to return
to Perugia in the spring of 1505.

He painted for

the convent of St. Anthony there, a piece for the
high altar, of which the principal composition was a
' Madonna with Four Saints/ and, in a semicircular frame
above, {God the Father with Angels,' a painting now
in the royal palace at Naples.

Besides these, he

painted a fresco in San Severo, representing the Holy
Trinity, and the beautiful and well-preserved Madonna
of the family of Filippo di Simone Ansidei, as an altarpiece for the chapel of San Nicolo di Bari in the
church of San Fiorenzo dei P.P. Serviti at Perugia;
part of this altar-piece is now in the Duke of Marlborough's possession at Blenheim, and part is at
Bowood, the seat of the Marquis of Lansdowne.

The

altar-piece at Blenheim represents the Virgin sitting on
a throne, ascended by three steps; she is holding the
Child on her lap with her right hand, and in the left
she has a small open book, on which the Child is gazing
with sweet seriousness.

Close by on the left stands

John the Baptist, represented as a man holding in his
left hand a cross of glass reaching to the ground, and
pointing with his right hand to Christ.

Nicholas of

Bari stands on the right in episcopal robes; in his left

RETURN TO FLORENCE.

41

hand he holds an open book, and in his right a golden
crosier.

Three golden apples lie at his feet.

A land-

scape, surrounded by an ornamented light grey arch,
forms the background.
quarter size.*

The figures are about three-

The centre picture of the predella

belonging to the above-described altar-piece is at
Bowood.

It represents John the Baptist preaching,

but it is unfortunately in some parts much injured and
defaced.f
Kaphael now, however, again returned to Florence,
for the narrow sphere of art at Perugia could no longer
satisfy his restless and onward striving mind.

A dis-

tinguished circle of young and old artists were wont at
that time to assemble of an evening in the studio of
the architect and sculptor Baccio d'Agnolo4

Vasari

mentions among others Andrea Sansovino, Antonio
and Griuliano di Sangallo; even Michael Angelo Buonarotti is said to have been there sometimes.

Much that

was beautiful and profound relating to art was discussed there; but Eaphael expressed his ideas with
more fervour and eloquence than any, an$ won all
hearts by his power. Distinguished citizens of Florence,
* See Appendix, note xxvii.
J See Appendix, note xxix.

f See Appendix, note xxviii.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

42

who also visited the house of Baccio d'Agnolo, became
acquainted with him here; and for one of these, Lorenzo
Nasi, he painted the ' Madonna del Cardellino' (with the
goldfinch) in the Tribuna of the Uffizi at Florence, and
for another, Taddeo Taddei, the learned friend of the
Cardinal Pietro Bembo, who conceived a passionate
affection for Eaphael, he painted the ' Madonna,' now
in the Imperial Palace at Vienna, and the ' Holy Family
with the Fan-palm,' now in the Bridgewater Gallery.*
Some portraits also belong to this period; among others,
that of the rich merchant Angelo Doni and his wife
Maddalena,

now in the Pitti Palace;

and

that

picture, unfortunately so much effaced, of a young
unknown Florentine, with green bodice and white
apron, in the Tribuna of the Uffizi, once pointed out as
Maddalena Doni; and another portrait of a young
Florentine lady.

In the latter, a great advance in the

technical part of the art is perceivable; it hangs in the
Pitti Palace, and has been finely engraved by C. Vitta
on a small scale.

It is probable that at the beginning

of this year, Eaphael went to Bologna for the sake of
becoming acquainted with Francesco Francia, and to

* See Appendix, note xxx.

COUKT OF DUKE GUIDOBALDO.

43

paint an c Adoration of the Shepherds' for the Governor
of Bologna, Giovanni Bentivoglio. This painting, which
was formerly at Ildefonso, has now disappeared.
From Bologna, our artist once more repaired to his
native city Urbino, where Duke Guidobaldo had just
gathered a brilliant court around him.*

Here were to

be found some of the most intellectual people of that
day in Italy—Count Baldassare Castiglione, the most
accomplished courtier, poet, and writer; Giuliano dei
Medici, brother of Leo X.; Andrea Doria, the famous
Genoese; Pietro Bembo, afterwards

Secretary

to

Leo X.; Bernardo Divizio da Bibbiena, subsequently
Cardinal of Santa Maria in Portico, a man replete with
wit and wisdom; and many others.

Certain it is that

the influence of these men upon Baphael was not inconsiderable ; until his death he remained on terms of
friendship with most of them.

He still painted only

small pictures for the Duke, as the latter was not rich;
one of these was intended as a present to King
Henry VII. of England, and was conveyed thither by
Count Castiglione.f

The subject was a ' St. George on

Horseback killing the Dragon,' and the picture is now

* See Appendix, note xxxi.

f See Appendix,, note xxxii.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

44

in the hermitage at St. Petersburg. He painted also two
6

Madonnas' for the Duke; a ' Holy Family,' in which

Joseph is represented without a beard ; a picture, now
also at St. Petersburg; and the so-called small 'Madonna ' of the Orleans Gallery, now in the possession of
M. Dellessert at Paris; besides the portraits of the Duke
of Urbino and his wife Elizabeth, of which all trace is
lost.

In addition to these, he executed at the same

time a portrait of Pietro Bembo in black chalk, which
has likewise disappeared; his own well-known likeness,
probably intended for his uncle Simone Ciarla, and now
in the picture gallery of the Uffizi; and, lastly, the
' Three Graces,' a painting formerly in the Galleria
Borghese at Rome, subsequently in that of Lord
Dudley, and since 1850 in the possession of Lord
Ward in London.

The group is arranged completely

in imitation of the antique.

The dotted engraving of

it by Sherwin is bad, but that done by Forster in
Paris, in 1841, is very excellent.

This

charming

picture, seven inches square, is so far well worthy of
notice, in that it exhibits Eapbael's first attempt in representing the naked figure, and displays a more direct
influence from the antique than any of his previous
works.

With the exception of the lacking nymph, as

45

THE THEEE GEACES.

G-iesebrecht justly points out, it corresponds throughout
with those beautiful lines of Horace (Carm. iv. 7 ) : —
Diffugere nives, redeunt jam gramina campis
Arboribusque comae;
Mutat terra vices, et decrescentia ripas
Flumina prsetereunt:
Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
Ducere nuda choros.
Immortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum
Quse rapit hora diem.

We may, moreover, conclude, with some degree of
certainty, that this picture was suggested to Eaphael
during his residence in Siena by the beauty of the
marble antique of the ' Graces,' which now stands in
the Liberia of the cathedral at Siena.

Here, also, the

middle figure recedes, while the two others advance,
and all three touch each other's shoulder with the one
hand, while the other holds a golden ball, for throwing
and catching during the dance.

Their hair is adorned

with bands of red coral, and the figure on the right has
a necklace of the same, while that on the left has a
band round her waist and thigh.

The background is

formed by a hilly landscape, in which even the stream
of that ode of Horace is not missing.

The coun-

tenances have that expression of melancholy sweetness
which belongs to Perugino's school, and which is

RAPHAEL SANTI.

46

quite in harmony with the concluding words of the
passage we have quoted.*
On his journey to Florence he painted on wood, a tempera, the portraits of two priests, Blasio and Don Baldassare, in the monastery of Vallomhrosa. These portraits
were placed in the Florentine Academy in 1813. Having
arrived in Florence, he executed the beautiful painting
of the ' Holy Family' for Domenico Canigiani, which is
now in the Pinakothek at Munich, though much effaced
and painted oyer.

This painting, which is so highly

extolled by Vasari,f represented the Virgin, the Infant
Christ, Joseph, Elizabeth, St. John, and two boy-angels ;
the latter, however, were erased as superfluous by the
Gallery Inspector at Diisseldorf, where the picture was
placed for some time, and the space has been filled up
with some grey clouds.J
Soon after Eaphael received the order from Atalante
Baglioni to paint the c Entombment of Christ' for the
Franciscan church at Perugia—a painting which now
constitutes the principal ornament of the Galleria Borghese at Eome.

This painting was completed at Pe-

rugia in the year 1507, after he had made the most
* See Appendix, note xxxiii.
} See Appendix, note xxxv.

f See Appendix, note xxxiv.

THE ENTOMBMENT OF CHRIST.

47

comprehensive sketches and studies for the cartoon of
it, which he prepared in Florence; and these sketches
are for the greater part still in existence.

This is the

first work of Eaphael's in which the result of his
severe and profound study of Leonardo da Vinci and
Michael Angelo came forth conspicuously to view, and
that power of expression, that truth of attitude, and
that beauty of form were manifested, which were soon
to render our master so far superior to all his contemporaries and successors.

Only here and there does

an occasional trait, such as the gold ornaments to the
garments, call to mind the earlier and youthful stage
of his art.

The figure of the Saviour is not dissimilar

to that in Michael Angelo's group of the Pieta in St.
Peter's at Eome, and, as Passavant justly points out,* it
is like the figure in that piece of sculpture in its affinity
with a far earlier type of the form of Christ.

It has

in it something of the dry and meagre style of the old
school, affording, therefore, all the greater contrast
with the more free and marvellous character of the
two young men who are bearing the body.

Quatre-

mere de Quincy says very justly respecting this

* See Appendix, note xxxvi.

48

RAPHAEL SANTI.

painting: * ' The man who is ascending the steps of
the sepulchre backwards, exhibits the two-fold expression of moral grief and physical effort, and nothing
more noble and more graceful can be conceived than the
position of the young man who supports the lower part
of the body.

As for the grief of the Virgin and of

the holy women around her, Raphael himself would
have produced nothing more full of expression, had he
not subsequently painted the " Bearing of the Cross,"
called Lo SpasimoS

Joseph of Arimathea, too, and

the mourning John, are magnificent figures; and even
in the present day we can assuredly subscribe to the
words of Vasari, who, thirty years after the completion
of the painting, extolled that in it which, with almost
equal truth, may be asserted of it even now—that it
looked as fresh as though it were only just completed.f
'And in truth,' he exclaims with enthusiasm,

6

who-

ever contemplates the industry, the love, the art, and
the grace of this work, has every cause to be astonished, as much on account of the expression in the
figures as of the beauty of the drapery, and especially
on account of the extraordinary excellence which is

* See Appendix, note xxxvii.

f See Appendix, note xxxviii.

BETUBN TO FLORENCE.

stamped on every part.'

49

In addition to the principal

piece, Eaphael painted in a smaller quadrangular compartment, a half-length figure of 6 God the Father, surrounded by Angels.' This painting is still in the church
of the Franciscans at Perugia; whilst the < Theological
Virtues,' with the three little angels standing between
them, which was executed in grey, was taken to the
picture gallery at the Vatican.
Once more our artist returned to Florence, and probably soon after he produced the magnificent half lifesize figure of St. Katharine of Alexandria, now in
the National Gallery in London. The execution of this
painting, which has been unsatisfactorily engraved by
Desnoyers, is, it is true, slight, but it is extremely
clever; the landscape background is treated as a mere
sketch.

Perhaps the portraits of the two youths at the

Louvre belong to this epoch, but the ' Madonna' of the
Tempi family certainly does; this picture was purchased
by Louis . of Bavaria for 16,000 scudi, and is now in
the Pinakothek at Munich.*

In addition to these,

he executed the beautiful life-size ' Madonna' belonging
to the Niccolini family,'a knee-piece painted in 1508,

* See Appendix, note xxxix.
E

RAPHAEL SANTI.

50

now in the possession of Lord Cowper at Penshanger,
But in this painting, the expression of the Child, who
is riding on a pillow on the lap of the lovely mother,
with his left hand pushed into her bodice, is carried
to the borders of affectation—a fault which, however,
often appears at this period in Eaphael—as, for example,
in the angels of the fresco painting in San Severo at
Perugia, and in the cMadonna' of the Colonna family at
Berlin.*

In addition to the two last, which belong

certainly to 1507, we might here mention also the
{

Madonna with the Pink,' the original of which seems

to have been lost; the

c

Madonna with the sleeping

Infant Christ,' or ' La Vierge au Linge,' at Paris, which
has been so often copied ; the ' Holy Family, with the
Child on a Lamb,' at Madrid; the

e

Belle Jardiniere,'

in the Louvre, a painting originally executed for a
Sienese nobleman; and the

c

Madonna with the Two

Children,' in the Esterhazy Gallery at Vienna.
I t was about this time that Eaphael became acquainted with the painter Baccio della Porta, usually
called Fra Bartolommeo, in consequence of his being a
Dominican monk of San Marco.

Eaphael conceived a

* Se« Appendix, note xl.

BACCIO BELLA PORTA.

51

warm friendship for him, and he studied with him
constantly.

From him he especially learned to arrange

his drapery with more magnificence, to lay on colour
more broadly, and to use carmine with greater skill.
How readily the young master adopted anything new
which seemed to him worthy of imitation, may be seen
in his unfinished

c

Madonna del Baldaechino,' now in

the Pitti Palace, but originally intended for the altar
of the Dei family in Santo Spirito at Florence.

Here

we find the style of Fra Bartolommeo most faithfully
imitated, so much so even, that we could have asserted
that the painting was not at all the work of Eaphael,
but that of his friend the monk.

This, however,

cannot be proved with any degree of authenticity.
That the picture remained unfinished was occasioned
by BaphaePs sudden departure for Eome in the middle
of the yea.r 1508.

Pope Julius II., having already

taken into his service the greatest architect of his age,
Donato Lazzari of Urbino, surnamed Bramante, as
well as the greatest sculptor, Michael Angelo, wished
also to call his own the greatest painter of the time,
and for that reason he summoned Eaphael to Eome.

E 2

RAPHAEL

52

SANTI.

CHAPTER

IV.

RAPHAEL IN ROME UNDER POPE JULIUS II.
1508-1513.
RAPHAEL I N ROME—EMPLOYED BY JULIUS I I . TO PAINT THE APARTMENTS

OF THE VATICAN—THE SUBJECTS CHOSEN FOR THE SALA

DELIA

SEGNATURA—-THE ' DISPUTA

OPINIONS RESPECTING THIS PAINTING
I D E A L I S M — ' THE

DEL

SACRAMENTO ' — V A R I O U S

THE PRINCIPLES OF ARTISTIC

SCHOOL O F A T H E N S ' — R A P H A E L ^

ADVANCE

IN

P A I N T I N G — H I S RULES OF ART—PROFESSOR BRAUN ON RAPHAEL'S
' DISPUTA'

MICHAEL ANGELO'S INFLUENCE UPON HIS A R T — R A P H A E L

AND MICHAEL ANGELO—RAPHAEL'S POSITION I N ROME—LA FORNARINA—RAPHAEL'S SONNETS—HIS BETROTHAL -WITH THE NIECE O F
THE

CARDINAL

RAPHAEL PAINTS A PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF FOR

FRANCESCO FRANCIA—RAPHAEL UNDERTAKES THE SECOND HALL O F
THE VATICAN
PETER f

' THE MASS OF BOLSENA '

' THE DELIVERANCE O F

' THE ATTILA.'

W E have seen that our artist had hitherto, in his own
advance, carefully availed himself of the experiences of
older and, indeed, of all masters, without in so doing
sacrificing and renouncing his own taste — that he
reflected these masters in his works in the most manifold manner, and theretore displayed his powers in the

PKOGKESS IN HIS AET.

most various technical changes.

53

At first he had

thrown himself with the greatest devotion into the
style of the Umbrian painters, and during this period
all his Madonnas, his Infant Christs, and his Saints
are invested with a melancholy expression of dreamy
sadness; while afterwards, when he aimed at satisfying
the practical mind of the Florentines with its love of
the present, he represented them in cheerful family
scenes, full of the simple and healthful joys of life.*
It is true, even at that time, greater things were in his
soul; it is true, as Goethe says,f that he worked even
then ' with ever equal and increasing ease, with a
power of mind and energy maintained in due balance,
with a richness of genius, giving forth the freshest
water, as it were, from the first fount.

Preceding

masters had only conducted the youth to the threshold ; he alone needed but to raise his foot to enter
within the temple.

Even Leonardo da Vinci and

Michael Angelo, during their long life, had scarcely
ever, in spite of the zenith to which their talent reached,
arrived at true delight in artistic work.

The one,

on close examination, actually wearied himself with

* See Appendix, note xli.

f See Appendix, note xlii.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

54

thought, and laboured too much at the technical part
of his art; the other, instead of leaving behind him a
multitude of sculptures in addition to those which we
owe to his hand, harassed himself during the best years
of his life in procuring flocks of marble from the
quarries, so that after all, of all his intended heroes
from the Old and New Testament, the single statue of
Moses is the only thing completed which we possess, as
a model of what might have been and could have been
achieved.'
Even in Florence, Eaphael was undeniably the
greatest painter of his time; but it was not till he
came to Eome that the high requirements of a bold
and intellectual patron afforded that unlimited scope
to the inexhaustible riches of his genius, after which he
thirsted.

From the provincial narrowness of a circle

bounded by the taste of Urbino, Perugino, and Florence, the man, aspiring to the highest aims and standing
even now at the zenith of his powers, entered a city
which had been for ages the centre of civilisation, and
which now especially was impelled by impulses without
and within, to prove this vocation in the most important manner.

To gain complete sovereignty for the

apostolical see, was the restless endeavour of Julius I I .

JULIUS II.

55

From his spiritual authority he longed to see a temporal power arise, a theocratic state KCLT z%oyf\v; and
to obtain this end, all the arts were in requisition.
It was this spirit which called the cathedral of St.
Peter's into life, from the ruins of a past of more than
a thousand years—which raised it as a new creation,
as a symbol of the spiritual power to which all other
human powers were subject, partially at least realising the magnificent idea of Nicholas V., 'according
to which the Vatican palace ought to be enlarged into
a kind of papal city, so that not merely the Pope and
his suite, but the whole body of ecclesiastics, and all
spiritual officers, should find sufficient room in it, to
render it truly the central point of the whole of
Christendom.'*

We can readily imagine what im-

measurable tasks were afforded to art by such a mind
—tasks, indeed, of the highest historical subjects—and
how much a genius like Eaphael must have been thus
stimulated to open his mind to these vast historical
impulses, and by this means to carry his art into a new
stage of development.

' The greatness of the theme,

which is the rock on which the man of weak endow-

* See Appendix, note xliii.

RAPHAEL SAETI.

56

ments, unstrengthened by active mental effort, is sure
to founder,' says Ernst Guhl * with much truth, ' is to
the man of true talent, fortified by studious work, so
important a condition of his life, that nothing else can
compensate for it.'

No wonder, therefore, was it that

Eaphael's art reached its full maturity only when
brought in contact with the highest demands made by
Italy at the very prime of her efforts in art and
science.

From henceforth his art was no longer em-

ployed for the expression of subjective feeling, of calm
enthusiastic devotion, or for the glorification and intensity of sensuous enjoyment, but for the comprehensive idea of united humanity.

After Eaphael's

residence in Eome, scarcely any of his compositions
lack the dramatic interest of the action represented :
a power placing everything in motion—a great link
uniting all the characters in the painting—a spiritual
central point striking every eye—c the turn in events
—the moving action—this is almost always the soul of
the picture—it is ever one idea pervading the whole,
rendering the composition, as it were, transparently
crystal.' f
* See Appendix, note xliv.

f See Appendix, note xlv.

THE SALA DELLA SEGNATUKA.

57

Eaphael was called upon to decorate the state apartments of the Vatican, and the manner in which he
discharged this task gained him the name of the
philosophical

painter—a name which was only in-

tended to denote, that he had conceived the work of
the painter from that synoptic point of view which
Plato ranks as the highest of human thought.

The

works which procured him this title were those which
he executed for the Sala della Segnatura—namely, the
6

Parnassus,' the ' Disputa del S. Sacramento,' the

4

School of Athens,' and about fifteen smaller pictures,

representing Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, and Jurisprudence.
That Eaphael now and then, in the conception of
these Vatican fresco paintings, applied for the assistance of the learned, appears from a letter written by
him to the poet Lodovico Ariosto, in which he asks
the latter about the characters to be introduced in the
representation of Theology.*

But, in any case, he

owed the main part always to his mighty genius alone,
to his intuitive tact, and to his peculiarly fine feeling ;
for none of his learned friends—of those, at least, who

* See Appendix, note xlvi.

RAPHAEL SAOTI.

58

were especially intimate with him, such as Castiglione,
Bibbiena, and Bembo—were at that time in Eome.
We can, therefore, with reason assert, that in the
decoration of the Sala della Segnatura,* both idea and
execution are to be ascribed to Eaphael alone, upon
whom the spirit of the age and the atmosphere of the
Eoman curice of the day, can alone have exerted an
influence.

As a ' seasonable mark of respect in honour

of the ideas prevalent in the Vatican, from Poggio
and Salutato down to Bembo and Sadoleto'—as a
(

reflection

of the humanistic culture of the papal

court'—we find in this apartment ' t h e centre of
our spiritual existence—the
culture—that

foundations

of moral

truth which is revealed to us as

faith, as well as that which we obtain by our own
power as knowledge—that beauty and rule of right,
the possession and enjoyment of which first stamps us
as true men—we find all these here embodied and
glorified.'f

And certainly the manner in which our

artist achieved this great and difficult task, will be
no less admired in the limitless future than it was in
the days of Pope Julius I I . ; for the sight of the completed work produced such an effect on the mind of
* See Appendix, note xlvii.

t See Appendix, note xlviii.

THE SALA DELLA SEGNATURA.

59

the Pope, that he at once resolved upon having all his
apartments painted by Eaphael's hand.
Much which, in the 'Parnassus'

and (School

of

Athens,' may perhaps appear, when compared with the
accuracy and strictness of style in Eaphael's earlier
paintings, like a certain carelessness of treatment, the
partial heaviness of the figures and masses of draper}7,
and the occasional weakness of execution, is, however,
more than counterbalanced by a sense of the beauty of
the antique prevailing everywhere, the application of
which to art we generally call style—by the broad,
flowing, harmonious mannerism of the painting, which
always increases with all painters in the same proportion as the drawing is more careless and superficial.

It

was in these frescoes, we may say, that Eaphael first
truly became the director of taste in painting ; and if
Michael Angelo subsequently surpassed him in one
point in his ceiling paintings in the Sistine Chapel—
namely, in the simplification of the masses—still the
former, in his elegance and just proportions, in his
transitions, and in his gifted management of the brush,
produced results never attainable by the latter.

Indis-

putably, however, the most powerful lever in this new
mannerism, which was calculated both to hasten for-

60

EAPHAEL SAOTI.

ward the work and to increase the general effect,
is to be perceived in the impetuous desire of an ecclesiastical prince, ardent and youthful still with regard
to mind, though physically declining, and whose undertakings extended farther and farther the nearer death
approached him.*
I must abandon all idea of a special description
of the paintings of the different apartments; it would
afford ample material for a work in itself.

On the

other hand, I intend to point out briefly the various
interpretations which the ( Disputa' and the c School of
Athens' have undergone.
Although of late, after the example of Bellori,f who
appeared in 1695 with a new interpretation, Passavant,
Trendelenburg,^ Braun, and others, have rejected the
earlier explanations of Vasari,§ and more or less have
all given way to the modern idea that Pope Julius
intended to immortalise in painting, as two complete
contrasts, Christian theology in the

c

Disputa'

and

heathen philosophy in the ' School of Athens,' I feel
myself, on the other hand, fully agreed with the opinion

* See Appendix, note xlix.
J See Appendix, note li.

f See Appendix, note 1.
§ See Appendix, note lii.

THE ' DISPUTA DEL S. SACRAMENTO.'

61

of Herman Grimm,* that it was impossible that this
supposed contrast could have been felt so keenly in
the time of Julius II., and that the old interpretations of Vasari, which were universally received for
nearly two hundred years after the production of the
frescoes, thoroughly correspond with the character of
the age in which Julius and Raphael lived, and that,
although Vasari has erred in various points, especially
as regards the characters intended, on the whole he has
evidently hit upon the right explanation.
Modern critics have, in the first place, greatly
hesitated at the title * Disputa del S. Sacramento;' they
have called it downright nonsense, and have pointed
out that Raphael himself placed over the allegorical
figure of Theology, which is above the ' Disputa,5 the far
more explanatory inscription, ' Rerum divinarum notitia'
or Knowledge of divine things.^

Vasari, however, gives

no name at all to the ' Disputa/ but only says that
Raphael painted a ' Heaven with Christ and the Holy
Virgin, John the Baptist, the Apostles, the Evangelists,
and the Martyrs in the Clouds, with God the Father
sending down His Holy Spirit upon all, and with an

* See Appendix, note liii.

f See Appendix, note liv.

62

RAPHAEL SANTI.

endless number of Saints,' who are writing upon the
mass, and discussing (disputano) the different meanings of the host upon the altar.

That the designation

' Disputa' was usual for such representations in Vasari's
time, is shown by Grimm from another passage of the
same author, in which he is speaking of some pictures
by living artists, arranged by a society of painters in
Florence, and among these there also appears a Disputa
of philosophy concerning the Trinity, with the heaven
opened and choirs of angels.

When, therefore, it is

asserted that it is impossible that the excitement of
the assembled multitude, so strikingly expressed in the
picture, should only proceed from such a dispute—that
something far higher is to be conveyed by it—that the
whole history of the Catholic church must be symbolically expressed by it, and in this manner the painting
is transformed into ( a theological system, the embodied
idea, as it were, of Catholicism,'—there must surely be
an error in such a verdict—an error which appears
principally to have sprung from a natural inference ; for
as the three other wall-paintings in the same apartment
represent emblematically philosophy, poetry, and jurisprudence, the c Disputa' is naturally assigned to be the
representation of theology. It was conjectured, as Grimm

THE 'DISPUTA DEL S. SACRAMENTO.'

63

says,* that ' the Pope divided the higher spiritual existence of human nature into those four parts, and
wished to represent it as a whole in this apartment;
and as it appeared natural that such an idea, undertaken at the command of the supreme Head of
Christendom, should not be consigned for execution
to the single judgment of a youthful and unlearned
painter, it was imagined necessary to suppose the influence of the first spiritual authorities in Eome to have
been exercised in the production of the painting.'
In accordance with this view, besides the persons
who may be recognised by means of similar representations, or by the names written on the picture itself
—such as popes, fathers of the church, Dante, and Savonarola—there have been discovered in the painting with
more or less certainty, distinct personages, heathens,
Jews, heretics, representatives of all the Christian nations
of Europe, none of which were known to Vasari, or are
authorised by any communication from other authors
of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries.

And yet

Vasari wrote his work at the direct suggestion of the
circle of artistic and scientific celebrities assembled

* See Appendix, note lv.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

64

round the young Cardinal Farnese—certainly not without profound discussions taking place as to the style
and manner of the writing; and, added to this, his
book passed through a second edition before his death,
and in this the life of Eaphael is merely furnished with
a few slight additions.

Although, therefore, he has

doubtless erred in details—and upon this point all are
agreed—we should only venture to impute to him
weighty errors as regards the truth of his biography of his
great contemporary, on the ground of the most convincing arguments.
(

of the Disputa'

In what, moreover, does the ideal merit
lose, if we recognise in the picture, not

a complete Catholic system of theology, not theology in
the course of its scientific progress, the representation
of which, moreover, transcends the limits assigned to
the plastic art—but if, remaining true to Vasari's
interpretation, we assume, with Springer and Grimm,
that the painting depicts the moment when the clouds
burst asunder, when the celestial glory of the revealed
Grod breaks forth, rendering all further discussion useless, glorifying that visible sign of His presence, the
Eucharistic feast—when, in one word, in every movement of the crowded assembly, the distinct transition
from seeking to beholding truth, is evidently pour-

THE

trayed ? *

6

DISPUTA DEL S. SACRAMENTO.'

65

With this interpretation, what need is

there to suppose a purport still deeper, still more
significant

or more

learned, which

would more-

over not correspond with that classic idealism, the
highest representative of which in the Christian era was
undoubtedly Eaphael ?' For this true artistic idealism
is in no respect purposeless; 'it discards all material
interest as such, and embodies the whole chain of
ideas in a transparent form, beyond which and in
addition to which there is no work of art, for all is
absorbed in it.'

Even in historical representations,

every outward element, and everything only outwardly
significant, disappears with this true artistic idealism;
' i t grasps alone the universally human and eternal
element, and thus releases the psychological kernel
from the historical veil that encircles it.'

If, therefore,

6

many of the figures in the Disputa' are without a name,
they are for this very reason, < everlastingly true and
intelligible types of vague foreboding and rapturous
enthusiasm, of cautious investigation and unconditional
faith, which will be true for all times so long as the
spirit of man strives after the knowledge of the
Divine,'f
* See Appendix, note lvi.

f See Appendix, note lvii.
F

66

EAPHAEL SANTI.

Certain it is, that the great and pervading feature of
enthusiasm, uniting as it does all the persons in the
painting, must always be of far more importance
in its interpretation, than the explanation of the
different figures connected with the history of the
Church; the highest poetical beauty of the conception
must ever lie in the wonderful manner in which the
artist has represented the moment of surprise, the
sudden effect of the glory of the opening heaven upon
the most manifold individuality, yet at the same time
preserving the utmost unity.
Lastly, this interpretation of the picture accords
with the inscription on an old engraving of the ' Disputa,' by Giorgio Chisi, a pupil of Griulio Eomano's,
bearing the date of the year 1552.

The purport of it is

as follows:—' The principal men of the Holy Church are
praising and adoring the Holy Trinity and the Majesty of
Grod with all the inhabitants of heaven.

Who ought

not to be incited to piety by their example? 5

Upon

this Grimm remarks with his nice critical judgment: *
' These words do not contradict those of Vasari's;
Vasari only gives the half of the purport of the paint* See Appendix, note lviii.

THE

c

SCHOOL OF ATHENS.'

67

ing; he says what happened, the inscription on the
engraving adds how it happened; what with Vasari
was a condition, now "becomes an action.

Personages

of the Church entertaining different opinions upon
the Trinity are interrupted in their dispute by the
appearance of the Trinity itself, and by a higher power
than human logic they arrive at a conclusion in which
they all agree.'
Grimm has also carefully and acutely gathered together all the arguments in favour of the general justice
of Vasarfs interpretation of the ' School of Athens,' in
contrast to that held by modern critics.

Vasari says

#

that the picture represents ' una storia, quando i teologi
accordano la fllosofia e l'astrologia con la teologia.'
Here, too, he again uses the word c disputano.' The wise
men of the world—Aristotle with his ethics, Plato with
his Timseusj* in his hand, Diogenes reclining on the
steps below; to the right, the young Duke of Mantua;
Eaphael himself and Bramantes; Zoroaster with his
globes; and among the Evangelists, St. Matthew writing,
explaining the astrological figures on a board held by
an angel;—these are especially pointed out by him. On
* See Appendix, note lix.

f See Appendix, note lx.
F2

68

EAPHAEL SANTI.

the other hand, the interpretation of Giorgio Chisi,
who also engraved the 'School of Athens' in 1552,
runs thus: ' P a u l at Athens, brought to the Areopagus by some epicureans and stoics, standing in
the midst, sees the altar with the inscription, " To the
unknown God," and declares who this unknown God is.
He attacks reprovingly the service of idols, counsels
them to repent, and foretells the Last Judgment and
the Eesurrection of Christ.'
There is much in favour of this

interpretation,

although it is certainly striking that Vasari does not
refer to it in the second edition of his work; for that
he should not have known of Chisi's engraving is
scarcely to be supposed.

If we adhere to the idea of

Plato and Aristotle, we may consider them as the
representatives of two opposing sides of an old established scholastic contrast.

Far more pregnantly, how-

ever, does the true interpretation stand out, as Vasari
himself explains it, when we conceive the gentile
apostle Paul represented by the side of Aristotle, that
is, by the side of the Greek philosopher, who plays so
great a part in the history of the Catholic theology of
the scholastic age (especially since the thirteenth century, when he was made accessible to all by Latin trans-

THE 'SCHOOL OF ATHENS.'

69

lations and by the help of Arabic Aristotelians, such as
Averrhoes), and whose metaphysics appear even in
comparison with ecclesiastical dogmas as the second
agent holding sway over the schools. Paul, therefore, by
the side of Aristotle, signifies truly Christianity coming
in contact with the old philosophy.

As early as the

year 1524, Agostino Venetiano, a pupil of Marc Anton's,
engraved the figures of the group to the left, designated
by Yasari as Evangelists; and we perceive from the
writing on the pages of the book in which the Evangelist called by Vasari 6 St. Matthew' is writing, that
the engraving intended not him, but St. Luke.

If

we hold to St. Paul, this interpretation has evidently
much in its favour; for, although the Greek words
which Agostino placed in the book, as well as on the roll
of the angel kneeling before the Evangelist, are borrowed from the gospel of St. Luke (xi. 27 and i. 42),
and have no direct reference to the event here represented, relating as they do to the praise of the Holy
Virgin, still St. Luke was the companion of St. Paul on
the journey to Athens, and he has himself described in
the Acts of the Apostles (xvii. 18) the scene which we
see before us.

St. Matthew was thought of probably

merely' because, as the only Evangelist who narrates the

EAPHAEL SANTL

70

journey of the wise men from the East (St. Matthew
ii. 1-12), he seemed to establish a connection with
Zoroaster and the astrologers.

Modern critics, how-

ever, who will not hear of the Evangelists side by side
with the heathen philosophers, but who prefer to see
in the painting an accurate chronological history of
ancient philosophy, in opposition to that of Christian
theology in the 'Disputa,' turn St. Luke into Pythagoras,
the angel kneeling before him into his son, another
Evangelist into Heraklitus, and the man reading at the
pillar into Epicurus; and others in the same way.
But in all this there lies, in the first place, an obvious
misunderstanding of the period in which the painting
was produced; and, in the second place, the sublime
artistic idea that animates the picture loses half its
value.
At that day, as Grimm points out,* they stood on no
such high platform above things as to conceive the
Hellenic philosophy as a finished period in the mental
development of mankind.

' T h e works of the Greek

philosophers had in Eaphael's time infused themselves
deeply into the sources of Christian learning.

* See Appendix, note lxi.

Plato-

THE ' SCHOOL OF ATHENS.'

71

nists and Aristotelians still opposed each other as they
had done for hundreds of years; but all that had
been thought

and written during these centuries

respecting this opposition, blended into a whole with
the doctrines of the two great Greeks, formed no
distinct and tangible contrast to the Christian theology,
but belonged to it so completely, that the one could
not have done without the other.5

The German revo-

lution that extended into Italy more than thirty years
afterwards, had not yet exerted its power of reaction
in the purification and limitation of Catholic Christian knowledge. Pope Julius II. was still strongly influenced even by the practical astrology of that day. Vasari,
therefore, would not have been far wrong in his union
of philosophy, astrology, and theology, even though he
may have erred in interpreting the prominent figures to
be Plato and St. Matthew, instead of St. Paul and St.
Luke.

For, after all, what would be the great leading

idea of the whole representation, if Eaphael had only
brought before us an array of ancient philosophers.'
What would be taking place in the picture ?

Whence

would arise the evident powerful emotion with which
all the personages in the painting appear

seized?

What interpretation could we then assign to the

72

KAPHAEL SAKTI.

numerous figures,—children, and people of every age,
who are evidently not Greek philosophers ? We are
ever obliged to return to Vasari's explanation, that in
front to the left, the Evangelists are represented, and to
the right the astrologers, while between them are the
Greek philosophers, all equally occupied with the
appearance of Christ, thus symbolically showing Christianity in contact with ancient philosophy and astrology ; it is this interpretation alone which invests the
picture with life and character.

< The astrologers have

discovered that which was to prove the salvation of the
world, and they have sent their tables to the Evangelists, who, translating the figures of the former into
ideas and facts, write down words which fill all the
bystanders with still greater joy.

The composing and

dissemination of the gospels, as Divine writings, depicting the manifestation of Christ, was intended to
be here represented; hence, there were men

and

children, old and young, and even a woman among
the crowd, pressing forward from the left side in the
attitude of believing enquiry.
philosophers!

And then the Greek

We see the impression which the new

doctrine makes upon them also. One is absorbed in deep
reflection, another is copying the writing, a third is

PROGRESS IN HIS ART.

. 73

beckoning in the distance to his friends, while the
greater number remain in fixed attention.

By this

interpretation alone is life at once thrown into the
whole mass, and their agitation and excitement is
explained.' *
So much in explanation of the two principal paintings

It still remains for me to point out the im-

mensely rapid progress made by Eaphael while occupied
with the pictures in the Sala della Segnatura.

The

' Parnassus,' painted, indeed, on a most unfavourable
portion of the wall—a window interfering with i t betrays, perhaps more than any other, more of the
artist's ' graceful and somewhat meagre' Florentine
style ;f the figure of Apollo is a thorough failure,
and the different groups appear, indeed, connected by
no dramatic moment, but by outward arrangement
alone; still, the separate figures are in themselves
beautifully painted, and even the psychological interest is rendered conspicuous in each.
also, in the painting of the

6

There is,

Disputa' here and

there a want of true freedom, although here the
somewhat antique and solemn mode of execution,

* See Appendix, note lxii.

f See Appendix, note lxiii.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

74

after the example of the Florentine school of the
fifteenth

century, has

than otherwise.

rather

an

agreeable

effect

But even in this painting we per-

ceive the trace of the greater practice he had so
soon acquired; the lower part to the right required
far less of subsequent touching-up with
colours than had been necessary before.

tempera

The paint-

ing is also especially remarkable for its architectural arrangement, which is thus strikingly and briefly
described by Vischer in his c Aesthetik,' I I I . iii. 618 :—
' At the base, on the two sides of the altar, is a
symmetrical vis-a-vis

of fathers of the Church and

laymen, having the effect of a section of a circle
arched above, the ends being drawn downwards; above
in the air is the solemn circle of patriarchs, apostles,
and saints, this circle being arched in the reverse
direction, and forming a symmetrical contrast to the
lower.

This segment of a circle consists, moreover,

of two symmetrical halves, for it is divided in the
middle by some clouds, in which—and this even is
again symmetrical—four

boy-angels

are hovering.

Above the whole appears the Saviour, with Mary
and St. John at his side, and towering above all is
God the Father enthroned in glory; thus forming

HIS RULES OF ART.

75

the pyramidal summit, the basis of which is the two
circles of figures below.

This apex itself also forms

a symmetrical group, and above it three angels hover
by the side of Grod the Father, but in such slight
outline and delicate colouring that the pyramidal form
of the top is not destroyed.

The two great groups

of figures, in earth and heaven, are

symbolically

blended by the rays which fall from the Holy Spirit,
who is represented as a dove, hovering below the
figure of Christ, and which rest on the sacred elements
placed on the altar.

A more geometrical arrange-

ment can scarcely be seen, and, still less so, one that
triumphs so completely over stiff architectural rules,
by the wonderful magnitude of the figures, by their
individuality, and by the natural ease and variety of
every movement.'
Christian painters and lovers of the fine arts, above
all Friedrich von Schlegel,* • following in their judgment the opinion of the old Lanzi,f have pronounced
this painting to be the highest production of Christian
art.

The highest praise, however, has been awarded

by Eoscoe in his 'Life of Leo X.,'$ and by many
* See Appendix, note lxiv.
f See Appendix, note lxv.
I See Appendix, note lxvi.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

76

others after him, to Eaphael's last work, the ' Transfiguration.'

The reason for this difference of opinion

has been justly explained by the most learned interpreter of the

c

Disputa,' Professor Braun, of Bonn, in

his eloquent paper 'Eaphael's Disputa' (pp. 152-154),
written on occasion of the publishing of the wellknown Keller engraving.

The reason he alleges is

this: that the master, standing between two periods
of art, concluded the one in the ' Disputa'—that is,
he left the naive style, with its severe, even meagre
forms and sharp outlines, and began in the

c

Trans-

figuration ' the other style—that is, that treatment of
colour, grouping, and mode of expression, more nearly
allied to modern art.

These two different schools

have, however, even to the present day (we have only
to call to mind Overbeck and Kaulbach, Schlegel and
Grothe), found

their antagonistic advocates.

Con-

sidered purely technically, it would be scarcely possible not to perceive a very considerable advance in
the

c

School of Athens,' which, in spite of Vasari's

statement, was painted without doubt after the 4 Disputa.'

In this picture, the (School of Athens,' one

peculiarity deserves to be noted—that this is the only
one of all Eaphael's wall-paintings which is entirely

PROGRESS OF HIS ART.

77

free from myth; for the master, as a true child of the
Middle Ages, with their belief in miracles and marvels,
never before ventured to represent historical subjects
without some assisting admixture of a supernatural
form, and by this means he often caused an undue
interpretation, based on fable and history at the same
time*

This is the case, for example, in the

c

Attila,'

which he painted afterwards, and which we shall mention presently more particularly.

Attila is induced to

turn back, both by the eloquence of the Pope, and by
the heavenly apparition of the two princes of the
Apostles; but, as he is represented in the painting
looking only to the Apostles, it is to be inferred that
he is more influenced by the miracle than by the historical fact—that is, by the eloquence of the Pope.* In
the ' School of Athens,' however, the artist has completely extricated his original material from that world
of wonder.f

Especially worthy of admiration in this

painting is his management of antique costume, which
he had before had no opportunity of displaying; in
spite of this, he betrays in this very point a dexterity
and freedom in reproducing the taste of the ancients,

* See Appendix, note lxvii.

f See Appendix, note lxviii.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

78

such as has never been surpassed even with the far
more extensive knowledge of modern artists.

Besides

this, the influence of Eaphael's great rival, Michael
Angelo, is very evident in this painting.

Pope

Julius II., with keen penetration, at once perceived
this, and said to Sebastiano del Piombo, in 1512,
c

Gruardi 1' opera di Eafaele, che come vidi le opere di

Michelagnolo, subito lascio la maniera del Perosino, e
quanto piu poteva si accostava a quella di Michelagnolo.' * (We have only to look at Eaphael's works—
more especially the frescoes in the Camera della Segnatura—and it becomes evident that, as soon as he had
seen the paintings of Michael Angelo, he left Perugino's
style, and adopted, as far as he could, that of Michael
Angelo.)
Before Eaphael came to Eome, he had only seen
Michael Angelo's cartoon of the battle with the Pisans;
he had certainly entered into no closer intimacy with
him in Florence; for Michael Angelo had expressed
himself contemptuously respecting both Perugino and
Francia, and had therefore of course not especially
attracted Eaphael.

The anatomical studies of Michael

* See Appendix, note lxix.

MICHAEL ANGELO'S INFLUENCE.

79

Angelo, as well as the earlier ones of Leonardo da
Vinci, had of course not been without an influence
upon the drawing of the younger master; but it was
not till he had seen the ceiling painting in the Sistine
chapel—then only half completed, the Pope having
inspected it for the first time on Christmas Day, 1512,
while the painter's scaffolding was still standing—that
he was so struck by the powerful impression, that from
that time his art experienced a complete revolution.
' Those Titan forms of Michael Angelo's, the Sybils,
produced those fairy-like genii of Eaphael's, the four
beautiful female figures on the ceiling in the Stanza
della Segnatura, Poetry, Justice, Eeligion, and Philosophy—all of them the most exquisite types of ideal
womanhood which have ever been painted.

From

the Prophets of the one, we may trace the Evangelists
in the " School of Athens " of the other—both original
works, created without the old means of exciting awe,
but full of a grand and simple truth, influencing the
mind of the observer far more deeply than any works
produced by former masters, always excepting that "Last
Supper " of Leonardo's, which, however, far away as it
was in Milan, could exert no such influence.

The

" Parnassus " and the " Disputa " were executed in the

RAPHAEL SANTI.

50

old style; the " School of Athens" is the result of
his desertion of Perugino and adherence to Michael
Angelo.' *
That this verdict of Grimm's has much truth in it,
is not only shown by those words of Vasari,f so much
commented upon and in truth so perfectly in accordance
with it, ' Per le cose vedute di Michelagnolo, miglioro
ed ingrandi fuor di modo la maniera e diedele piu
maesta,' but it is also confirmed by the whole history of Kaphael's progress.

To him alone was it

given to learn constantly from other masters, without
losing the magic sweetness of his own originality;
even from his most distinct opposite, from the painter
of restless passion, our artist could imitate with impunity ideal loveliness and beauty.
manner was this done?

But in what

It was not ideas nor forms,

it was not style nor grouping which Eaphael borrowed
from Michael Angelo, but he penetrated at once into
the true mystery of a genius so opposed to his own;
and while he perceived in him the quintessence of
his art—that is, that which, with all his often apparent
lack of artistic reflection, raised him so mightily above

* See Appendix, note lxx.

f See Appendix, note lxxi.

RAPHAEL AND MICHAEL ANGELO.

8J

the commonplace and the vulgar, he did nothing but,
according to Quatremere's beautiful expression, draw
warmth from the flame, without in the least robbing the
hearth which produced it.*

Those words of Vasari's,

therefore, are very far from being an undervaluing of
Eaphael compared with Michael Angelo; they only intend, and in this every impartial critic of the two painters
must agree, that upon Michael Angelo that divine flame
first descended from which Eaphael afterwards drew
light and warmth that he might attain perfection ; f they
in no wise contradict the further conclusion, that, if
we allow that Eaphael learned from Michael Angelo,
we acknowledge even in this fact a decided superiority of the former to the latter, namely, in the
universality of his art.

If Michael Angelo towered

considerably above Eaphael in his free and bold
independence with respect to received traditions, he
lacked the capability of adding by happy imitation to
his original gifts any quality in which other masters
had an advantage over him; he ever remained exactly
as he was, in spite of all the Eaphaels round him,
and not even that antique which he so highly honoured
* See Appendix, note lxxii.

f See Appendix, note lxxiii.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

82

could

he attain to in its calm grandeur,

while

Eaphael, in consequence of an unequalled power of
appropriation, combined within himself by degrees
all those artistic qualities which alone in their totality
constitute true art.*

Vasari was certainly right in

asserting that he never equalled Michael Angelo in
the special art of pourtraying the naked figure; but
equally true is that which this same Vasari states a
little further on, namely, that out of the most different
gifts of various superior masters, Eaphael created a
manner of his own, which will ever be regarded as
belonging to him, and which will be held in the highest
admiration.f

We have here a complete acknowledg-

ment of the universality of Eapbael's art.
The little we know of the personal relation between
the two masters is vague and doubtful in its value.
At all events, we must not forget in examining the
records that exist, that expressions of great men respecting their equals, even though they may sound
severe, can never bear the significance of the trivial
words of abuse with which minds of a moderate class
dispute precedence with each other.

* See Appendix, note lxxiv.

Although Michael

f See Appendix, note lxxv.

RAPHAEL AND MICHAEL ANGELO.

83

Angelo once in anger at the disputes that had occurred
between him and Pope Julius II., the origin of which
he imputed to the envy of Bramante and Eaphael,
wrote of the latter,* 'Whatever he knew of art, he
knew through me,' there is no proof even in this
bitter expression that he misjudged in the least the
genius of his rival, or that he looked enviously upon
him in the sense of his own weakness, and thus relapsed into a hostile feeling towards him.

Herman

Grimm was certainly right in drawing attention to the
fact that above all things we should guard against
taking the strife of partisans, and the hatred with
which they may have pursued each other, as a measure
of the common sentiments prevailing between two great
men.f

Among those gossiping stories, which little

minds ever love to repeat of the great of

the

earth, we may reckon certainly the well-known anecdote *of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo,$ according to which
Michael Angelo, one day meeting Eaphael surrounded
by many of his pupils, called out to him, c There you
go with your great train like a provost.'

To which

Eaphael is said to have answered: 'And you go
* See Appendix, note lxxvi.
J See Appendix, note lxxviii.

f See Appendix, note lxxvii.
G 2

RAPHAEL SANTI.

84

alone like an executioner! • *

On the other hand,

there is no doubt that the amiable and much-loved
Eaphael, to whom the Muses came at will, and
whose life flowed on in harmonious repose, like a
broad and clear stream, and the solitary, crabbed,
and mighty Michael Angelo, whose existence was like
some gigantic struggle, and who mastered everything
alone by contest and strife,—there is, I say, no doubt
that these two men, different as their natures were,
knew, understood, and honoured each other, even
if there was no personal feeling of love between
them.
I t seems to me very significant and touching that
it was Vasari, a friend and pupil of the latter, who
was called upon to award a praise to the former,
which could alone belong to Eaphael in such full
extent.

He it is who drew for us a true picture of

the peculiar, nay unique, attractions of Eaphael,
who first ascribed Eaphael's

supremacy over

all

contemporary artists not so much to his masterly
power or to his worldly wisdom, but far more
to the influence of his noble nature.
* See Appendix, note lxxix.

(

Among

all

RAPHAEL'S INFLUENCE.

his rare gifts/ says Vasari,* 'I

85

consider one to be

so wonderful that it fills me with amazement: that,
namely, with which Heaven has invested him, the
power to awaken that feeling in our circle which is at
variance with the nature of painters; for all, not only
the lesser artists, but even those who claimed to be
great (and art produces numbers of such), were of one
mind, as soon as they worked in Raphael's presence.
All ill-humour disappeared when they saw him, every
low common thought was banished from the mind.
Such harmony has never reigned but in the time in
which he lived.

And the cause was this, that they

felt themselves overcome by his kindliness, by his art,
and still more by the might of his noble

nature*

4

( ma piu dal genio della sua buona natura').
This is, though in fuller detail, just the same as
Vasari so briefly and beautifully expresses at the very
commencement of his biography of Raphael.

His words

are these: ' La Natura, quando vinta dalF arte per
mano di Michelagnolo Buonarroti, voile in Raffaello
esser vinta dall' arte e dei costumi insieme.'

(tf Nature,

having been conquered by art through the hand of

* See Appendix, note lxxx.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

86

Michael Angelo, was in Eaphael conquered by art and
manners together.')*
Whoever has had the opportunity of moving in
intellectual and, at the same time, polite society, has
experienced how in such a circle that man always
occupies the highest place, and is involuntarily esteemed by all as the true chief, who unites with ability
of no ordinary kind, a manner distinguished by delicacy of feeling and nobility of mind, the essence of
true excellence, and exhibiting itself by the most
unaffected and agreeable intercourse.

This, however,

was to be found in Eaphael to the highest extent;
the greatest artist was at the same time an attractive
and clever man of the world, an acute judge of human
nature, a man of whom Giovio in his short biography
asserts with no injustice:! ' I s multa familiaritate
potentium quam omnibus humanitatis officiis comparavit, non minus qu^m nobijitate operum, inclaruit
adeo, lit nunquam illi occasio iliustris defuerit ostentandae artis.5

(' He wa$ no less famous for his friendly

relations with illustrious personages, whom he knew
how to place under obligations to himself, than for
* See Appendix, note lxxxi.

f See Appendix, note lxxxii.

• POSITION IN ROME.

87

the high order of his works, so that he never lacked
a brilliant opportunity for displaying his art.')
Hence it was that even the Pope and the grandees of
the Eoman court solicited Eaphael's friendship, that he
lived in Eome in wealth and luxury, as no artist had
done before him, that, when he went to the Vatican,
' cinquanta pittori tutti valenti e buoni' accompanied
him in solemn procession, bearing witness before everyone how truly they felt they were honouring themselves in showing him the highest honour, so that
Vasari might justly write of him : * Egli in somma non
visse da pittore ma da principe.' *

One alone, the

great Michael Angelo, stood gloomily and unsociably
aside, tendering no homage to him, pursuing his
high aim alone along steep and giddy paths, while
Ascanio Condivi in his < Vita di Michelangelo Buonarotti' (Eome, 1553) places this beautiful expression in
the lips of Eaphael: c I esteem myself happy to have
been born in the times of Michael Angelo, for through
him I have learned another art than that of the old
masters.'
6

Like Achilles and Hercules,' says Grimm,t ' the

* See Appendix, note lxxxiii.

. t See Appendix, note lxxxiv.

88

EAPHAEL SANTI.

two great men stand side by side, like vigorous beauty
shedding its light on all around, contrasted with
gloomy power overcoming everything in its might, or,
like a short and sunny spring contrasted with a
long year, beginning in tempest, and amid tempest
ceasing.'

But as regards the dispute continued even

up to the present day, as to which of the two merits
precedence as an artist, Eaphael or Michael Angelo,
we can only answer in the words of Grothe: ' I t is
difficult to comprehend one great talent alone, let us
say nothing, therefore, of two at once.

We lighten the

task by partiality, hence the estimation in which
artists and authors are held always fluctuates, and one
or the other exclusively rules the day.

Such disputes

have not perplexed me, because I have always let them
alone, and occupied myself with more

immediate

examination of all that is valuable and estimable.'*
And in another passage in his c Italienischen Eeise,' he
writes similarly: 'Now it was Eaphael, now it was
Michael Angelo, who held precedence, a fact from which
this only could be drawn at last: that man was such a
limited being that, if his mind did open to greatness,

* See Appendix, note IXXXT.

KAPHAEL'S POSITION IN EOME.

89

he never attained a capacity for equally estimating
and acknowledging greatness of different kinds.' *
It is certain that in the time in which Eaphael
lived, it was not he, but Michael Angelo, who was regarded as the greatest artist, nay, even between the
two, Leonardo da Vinci was for a time placed, and
only a third rank was awarded to the painter of the
beautiful. < Tertium in pictura locum Eaphael Urbinus
mira docilis ingenii suavitate atque solertia adeptus
est' (' the third place in painting belongs to Eaphael
d'Urbino, from the wonderful sweetness and versatility of his well-disciplined mind '), says Paolo Giovio ;
and even ^ n Vasari's biography, in spite of all his
admiration of the fascinating nature of the artist,
there is a certain coolness in his critical examination
of his works, which evidently does not proceed merely
from a one-sided preference for Michael Angelo, but
faithfully reflects the tone of feeling of the public of
the day.

Why Passavant, however, should, on the

other hand, grow so warm, and should take Giovio
especially to task, because he allows us to see that
Eaphael owed his great distinction principally to his

* See Appendix, note lxxxvi.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

90

versatile powers, is not easily conceivable ;* we should
far rather be astonished had it been otherwise, Mozart,
too, was in his own day never acknowledged as the
first master of melody, and it is just this circumstance which raises Baphaers everlasting fame above
all attack, that his contemporaries even then, although
they had not yet penetrated to the full merit of the artist,
still with one voice extolled to the uttermost the divine
harmony existing between his nature and his art.
Happy is the master whose character is estimated
by admiring contemporaries no less than his works.
He need have no care for his after-fame; for it is not
merely what the man has done, but what he has been,
that passes on to generations to come, and it is only
then, when being and doing are but one, that our
highest greatness and imperishable fame are to be
attained.
Soon after Raphael's arrival in Rome, he appears to
have formed an affection which only terminated with
bis death, though it cannot be considered quite certain
whether it was always one and the same maiden whom
he loved during this period.

According to the records

* See Appendix, note lxxxvii.

LA POENARINA.

91

of the Abbate Melchior Missirini, which are, moreover,
not very credible, his beloved was the daughter of a
turf-burner, living near Santa Cecilia, on the other
side of the Tiber.*

A small house ornamented with

a beautiful antique window-frame is still pointed out
in the Contrada Santa Dorotea, No. 20, as her birthplace.

From the annotated copy, of the sixteenth

century, of the second Florentine edition of Giorgio
Vasari's biographies of the year 1568, now in the possession of the advocate Giuseppe Bannutelli in Rome (fol.
78), it appears, according to Passavant,f that the girl
was called Margarita; she is now generally called the
Fornarina, without any direct testimony whence the
name arose.

She may have been the same maiden

who, according to Vasari, was in Eaphael's house at the
time of his death, and upon whom he settled a comfortable maintenance in his will, but suppositions of
this kind belong rather to the treasures of fable than
of truth, if
Certain it is, that ever the same female figure
appears in many of Eaphael's studies and sketches;
also a portrait painted by him in oils may lay decided
* See Appendix, note lxxxviii.
J See Appendix, note xc.

f See Appendix, note Ixxxix.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

92

claim to be a likeness of his beloved, even if not of
her whom we designate the Fornarina.

This picture,

probably belonging to an earlier period, is now in the
Barberini Palace in Eome; it represents a young
maiden, not completely dressed, having only shortly
before left her bath; she is sitting in a grove of
myrtles and laurel-trees, her head encircled with a
turbanlike yellow-striped handkerchief; her right hand
presses a transparent linen garment to her bosom,
while her lap, on which her left hand rests, is covered
with red drapery.

Her left arm is adorned with a gold

bracelet, and on this Eaphael has written his own
name.

Herman Grimm speaks of another picture,

which might possibly represent this youthful being in
maturer years; * formerly in the possession of Kestner,
the counsellor of the embassy in Eome, and unfortunately much injured and defaced: it is now in the
gallery belonging to his heirs in Hanover.

As in the

youthful figure in the Barberini Palace, we see here
also a handkerchief wound round her head; we seem to
have the same hair before us, the same delicate throat,
only everything is more refined, more mature, more

* See Appendix, note xci.

LA FORNARINA.

spiritual.

93

Her hands are grasping a fur cloak, which

is thrown over her shoulders, and is falling off, leaving
bare her bosom, which is covered with a low-drawn
finely folded garment, and in the middle, just where
the garment is fastened with a knot, and slightly parts,
there falls a golden chain.

Thus Grrimm describes the

portrait, which I myself saw in Eome in Kestner's
possession in 1852.
That Passavant should recognise in a picture existing
in the Pitti Palace since 1824—a picture which probably owes the honour of being called an original of
Eaphael's, only to the circumstance that something in
the expression of the countenance reminds of the ' Sistine Madonna'—that Passavant should recognise in
this picture the naive fresh child of nature developed
into a proud Eoman lady with a powerful frame and
royal demeanour, and should perceive in this painting,
therefore, a second genuine portrait of the so called
Fornarina, is to me perfectly inconceivable, as it
seems to me, and equally so to Grimm, to have a
thoroughly different
tenance.*

expression and cast of coun-

Passavant himself considers it not entirely

* See Appendix, note xcii.

94

RAPHAEL SANTI.

painted by Eaphael's own hand; the head is executed
with much spirit, the linen drapery covering the bosom,
and the full damask sleeve, are masterly, but the other
parts of the picture appear to him less finished in style.*
On the other hand, I will not dispute that much
that reminds us of this portrait is to be found in
many of Eaphael's female figures, for instance in the
large c Holy Family' at the Louvre, in the figures of
the frescoes for the story of Psyche in the Farnesina,
and even, although thoroughly idealised, in the c Sistine
Madonna-;' and equally little will I contest the further
statement of Passavant's as to the existence of an
engraving of Marc Anton's from a slight sketch of
Eaphael's, in which his beloved one is represented at
the very moment that she is sitting to him for a picture of a Madonna, contemplating herself pleasantly in a
small mirror, in which a man, standing behind her, and
bearing every appearance of a portrait, is also looking.
This may be her servant Baviera.

But whether the

' u n a sua Donna,'f—who, according to Vasari,J at
one time so completely drew away the master from his
work, that his friend Chigi at length could devise no
* See Appendix, note xciii.
J See Appendix, note cxv.

f See Appendix, note exiv.

LA FOENAKINA.

95

other means than to bring the beautiful woman to him
on his painter's scaffold, where she sat the whole day
by his side, and he could carry on his work without
being deprived of her company—whether this charmer
was identical with the so called Fornarina, and whether
the four sonnets which were written in Eaphael's handwriting on the back of some studies for the wall
painting of the ' Disputa,' and which are still in preservation, were addressed to this same beloved one or to
some other, is not at all certain.

So far alone we can

safely assert that these ardent poems were written
during the artist's residence in Eome (probably in
1508), and that he finished them off with great care,
in spite of the overwhelming passion to which they
certainly owe their origin.

And I confess that this

latter circumstance is to me far more interesting than
all the investigations for details of Eaphael's amours;
for they excite the imagination tenfold on account of
the very obscurity in which they are wrapped.

We

perceive again, moreover, from this fact that the
master ever endeavoured to make everything which he
undertook as perfect as possible, and we thus gain a
valuable addition to the completion of that portrait of
his noble character which it is our object to delineate.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

96

I will hero insert these valuable poetical effusions in
their due order :—
i.

Un pensier dolce e rimembrare il modo
Di quello assalto, ma piu grave il danno
Del partir, ch' io restai come quei ch' hanno
In mar perso la stella, se '1 ver odo.
Or lingua di parlar dissogli il nodo,
A dir di questo inusitato inganno
Ch' amor mi fece per mio grave afFanno,
Ma lui pur ne ringrazio, e lei ne lodo.
L' ora sesta era che 1' occaso un sole
Aveva fatto, e 1' altro surse in loco,
Atto piu da far fatti che parole.
Ma io restai pur vinto al mio gran foco
Che mi tormenta, che dove 1' uom sole
Disiar di parlar, piu riman fioco.
{The original is at Oxford.)
'Tis sweet in thought to embrace thee once again !
But waking from my dream, thy loss comes back;
And like some mariner who has lost his track,
And finds a starless heaven, I remain.
Let my tongue burst its fetters, and disclose
How Love destroyed me with his cunning ways,
And drew me down to my own loss and woes;
But yet I thank his wiles, and her I praise.
'Twas even, and one sun had long declined,
When in its place that other sun arose
With speechless action, utterance to find.

SONNETS.

97

Thus have I been by cruel thoughts assailed
With their tormenting power; for when I pined
To vent my grief in words, all utterance failed.

II.

Amor, tu m' invescasti con due lumi
Dei ocehi dov' io me strugo, e face
Da bianca neve e da rose vivace,
Da un bel parlar, e d' onesti costumi.
Tal che tanto ardo che ne mar ne fiume
Spegner potrian quel foco, ma piace
Poich' il mio ardor tanto di ben mi face
Ch' ardendo ognor piu d' arder mi consuma.
Quanto fu dolce al giogo ! E la catena
De' suoi candidi bracci al col mio volti
Che scegliendomi io sento mortal pena.
D' altre cose non dico che son molti,
Che soverchia dolcezza a morte mena,
E pero taccio, a te i pensier rivolti.
(Oxford.)
Love, that ensnar'st me with thy magic light
From eyes that melt me into hope and fears;
Like snow on roses lying she appears
With word and actions to inspire delight.
Until so warm my flame, that no sea wave
Could quench the burning ardour that I know;
Yet revelling in the flame I feel its glow,
Nor wish from its consuming power to save.
H

98

KAPHAEL SANTI.
How sweetly passive was she when controll'd;
Throwing her white arms as a chain around,
Until it seemed like death to loose their hold.
Yet pause I here, tho' still my thoughts abound;
For joys excessive, fatal powers enfold ;
Yet while I cease, to thee my thoughts are bound.
in.
Come non pote dir arcana Dei
Paul, quando disceso fu dal cielo,
Cos! il mio cor d' uno amoroso velo
A ricoperto tutti i pensier miei.
Pero, quanto chr io viddi e quanto fei
Pel gaudio taccio che nel petto celo,
E prima cangero nel fronte il pelo
Che mai T obbligo volga i pensier rei.
Guarda al ardor mio, non abbi appico,
Che, send' io tuo soggetto, mi or concede
Che per mia fiamma ardresti apoco, apoco.
E se '1 pregarmi in te avesse loco,
Giammai non restaria chiamar mercede
Sin che nel petto fosse il parlar fico.

(Oxford.)
As Paul from mortal ear those words withheld
Which he had heard in Paradise above,
So round my heart is drawn a veil of love,
By which my thoughts in secrecy are held.
Hence all I did and all that sight revealed,
From my own bosom none shall dare to know;
And my dark locks to silvery white shall grow,
Ere night shall open all that lies concealed.

SONNETS.

99

Yet see my passion, and vouchsafe this grace,
That being thine, it may be granted me,
That thou wouldst burn a little for my flame ;
And if my prayers with thee may find a place,
Ne'er would I pause thy piteous help to claim
Until the powers of utterance silent be.
Of the fourth sonnet there exist only the two first
verses, and these are

in

some parts

doubtful, as

Raphael's manuscript, now in the Musee Favre at
Montpellier, is very carelessly and illegibly written:—
IV.

Fello pensier, ch' in te cercar affanni
E dare in preda il cor per piu sua pace,
Or vedi tu gli effetti aspri e tenace
Sciolti che m' usurpar i piu belli anni.
Ma le fatiche, e voi, famosi affanni,
Eisvegliate il pensier che in ozio giace,
Mostrategli quel colle alto che face
Salir dai bassi ai piu sublimi scanni.
Sad thought! that unto thee I gave my heart,
Seeking for peace, and finding nought but pain;
Seest thou the bitter anguish and the smart
With which life's fairest years are from me ta'en ?
But ye, my efforts, and thou, aching grief,
Waken the thought that had in slumber lain,
And point to paths, ascending which I gain
Sublimer heights that may afford relief.
H2

100

RAPHAEL SANTI.

Here the sonnet breaks off; but with all its deep
anguish of love it exhibits also a strong manly feeling
of genuine genius, endeavouring to regain composure by a return to artistic work.

On account of this

moral turn, this fragment appears to me almost more
important and characteristic than the other more
perfect poems.
Eaphael was never married.

In a letter to his uncle

Simone Ciarla, dated July 1, 1514, he touches upon
the subject in a business-like manner, and says, far
from all sentimentality, that he had refused in Eome
very different persons to those now proposed to him in
his native city Urbino; that he did not wish to enter
into any proposals of marriage, nor did he desire a
wife, that he had never got so far with anyone
where he now was, and he thanked God daily for
having acted so wisely.

Nevertheless he did not refuse

the hand of the young Maria di Bibbiena, the niece of
the Cardinal Santa Maria in Portico,* who was just at
that time proposed to him. Still, however, he postponed
the marriage, according to Vasari, because he hoped to
be-appointed Cardinal—an appointment which, when we

See Appendix, note xcvi.

MARIA DI BIBBIENA.

101

consider the Eoman affairs of that period, is in itself
not so utterly incredible as the interpreters of Vasari
imagine ;* for Leo X. appointed a number of cardinals,
principally for the sake of the large sums which by
this means flowed into his coffers. And Raphael himself
was rich; he was a favourite with the Pope, and, as
Grimm alleges, he was a kind of chief minister in the
Fine Arts, which were all-important in the eyes of
Leo X.

That, as some maintain, the alliance with the

niece of the Cardinal was prevented by her death,
which took place shortly before his own, is by no means
a settled matter.

The well-known difficult passage in

the above-mentioned letter, ' Siamo piu che mai alle
strette,' may be translated as by Grimm, ' We (that is,
the Cardinal and I) are on the point of breaking off
the affair;' or it may be translated as by Guhl and
Passavant,

'We

the conclusion.'

are more than ever approaching
With regard to what follows, when

Raphael consoles his uncle, and begs him to wait for
the moment when he and Bibbiena should have come to
an explanation, and that, in case the affair should be
put an end to, he would submit to the wish of his

* See Appendix, note xcvii.

102

RAPHAEL SANTI.

uncle, I must give the preference to Grimm's interpretation.*

Even though, according to his own last

will, the remains of Maria, as his betrothed, were to
be placed by the side of his own in the same chapel of
the Pantheon—and that this was done is evidenced by
the inscription found there f—even this affords no proof
against Grimm's interpretation, for the betrothal could
very reasonably have taken place in 1514, not long
before the breach, without having been in consequence
ever wholly given u p ; and we can well imagine that
Eaphael, out of consideration for Bibbiena, willingly
allowed that Maria's name should come before posterity as that of his affianced, although he had for a
long time given up the idea of a union with her.

At

the same time it may be left undecided whether there
is any truth or no in the supposition of Vasari's editor,
that she was {malaticcia'

(sickly), and that this cir-

cumstance favoured the postponement of the marriage,
according to Eaphael's desire.
We must now take up the threads of our narrative
after this lengthy digression.

In a letter of Sep-

tember 5, 1508, published by Count Malvasia in his

* See Appendix, note xcviii.

f See Appendix, note xcix.

LETTER TO FRANCESCO FRANCIA.

103

' Felsina Pittrice,' ii. 48, Eaphael promised his friend
Francesco Francia in Florence a portrait of himself in
return for that of Francesco.

' I must beg you/

writes Eaphael, 'to make allowance for me, and to
pardon my delay and postponement in sending you my
own (that is, my portrait) which, from

my unin-

terrupted and important occupations, I have not as
yet been able to finish, according to our agreement.

I

might certainly have sent you one, executed by one of
my pupils and retouched by myself, but that would not
have been right.

I will at once set about the .task,

though the result will not equal the merit of your
work.'*

It is probable that, in consequence of this

promise, that knee-piece was executed in which Eaphael, with his face at three quarters, is represented
sitting at a table covered with a cloth, on which his
right arm rests, his hand falling over it, while his left
hand holds his fur-bordered cloak.

Prince Adam Czar-

toryski purchased the picture in Venice in 1807; at
1850 it was brought from St. Petersburg to England,
and was engraved by Paul Pontius.
at Stuttgart.

A copy of it is

At the same time another painting of

* See Appendix, note c.

104

RAPHAEL SANTI.

Raphael's, an ' Annunciation/ was sent to Bologna,
b u t all further information respecting it is lost; a copy
of it, however, is to be seen in t h e castle at Grotha.

It

is probable that Francia wrote his well-known sonnet,
t h a t touching proof of his high esteem for a friend so
much his junior in years, on t h e arrival of this picture.
The superscription is as follows: ' T o t h e

excellent

painter Eaphael Santi, t h e Zeuxis of our age, from
m e Francesco Eaibolini, surnamed Francia.'
insert the poem :—
Non son Xeusi ne Apelle, e non son tale
Che di tanti tal nome a me convegna,
Ne mio talento, ne vertude e degna
Haver da un Kaffael lode immortale.
Til sol, cui fece il ciel dono fatale
Che ogn' altro eceede, e fora ogn' altro regna,
L' eccellente artificio a noi insegna
Con cui sei reso ad ogn' antico uguale.
Eortunato garzon, che nei primi anni
Tant oltrepassi, e che sara poi quando
In piu provecta etade opre migliori ?
Vinta sara natura ; e da tuoi inganni
Resa eloquente dira te lodando
Che tu solo il pietor sei da' pictorL
Nor Zeuxis' nor Apelles' art is mine,
That such high honours I should dare to claim;
Nor am I worthy of the immortal fame
A Eaphael to my talent would assign.

We will

FKANCESCO FRAXCIA.

305

Such gifts has Providence on thee alone
Bestowed, choice gifts of long-enduring fame;
Thou teachest men true art, making thy name
Equal with ancient painters in renown.
Oh happy youth ! if thou dost so excel
When but a few short summers thou hast known,
What wilt thou be when ripe with studious years ?
Then will thy magic hand its victories tell,
And vanquished nature ring thy praise alone,
That amid painters thou hast no compeers.
During the first three years of his residence in Koine,
Eaphael painted the long-lost but often-copied ' Madonna di Loretto' for the church of Santa Maria del
Popolo, which was brought from Florence by Sir
Walter Kennedy Laurie in June 1857, and exhibited
before the Accademia di San Luca in Kome, who pronounced it to be genuine.*

He painted also for the

same church the splendid portrait of Julius II., which
is now in the Pitti Palace; the portrait of the young
marquis Federigo di Mantova, now in England; f and
that of Parmesano, a favourite of the Pope's, a painting
which was found in Eome a few years ago by a printseller named Valati, and sold to an Englishman.}
* See Appendix, note ci.
J See Appendix, note ciii.

f See Appendix, note cii;

He

RAPHAEL SANTI.

106

also executed the 'Madonna

of the House of Alba'

for the church of the Olivetans at Nocera de' Pagani
in the kingdom of Naples: this painting is now in the
Hermitage at St. Petersburg.

The c Madonna with the

Diadem' (' Yierge au Diademe,' or, as Desnoyers calls
it, ' Vierge au Linge') in the Louvre, and the ' Madonna of the Aldobrandini family,' in the possession of
Lord Grarvagh in London, also belong to this period, as
well as the great ' Madonna di Fuligno,' painted about
the year 1511, as an altar-piece for Sigismondo Conti
of Fuligno, the Pope's private secretary.

This picture

was formerly in the church of Araceli, but it is now in
the Vatican.

This painting is especially remarkable

for that deeper golden tint which was never apparent
in the earlier works of the master, as well as for the
chiaroscuro in the charming boy-angel who holds the
tablet—one of the most exquisite forms ever painted by
Eaphael.

It reminds us somewhat of the manner of

Sebastiano del Piombo, who was at that time making a
great noise in Eome.
In the year 1512, by order of the German nobleman
Johannes Grorizius of Luzembourg, the master painted
the ' Prophet Isaiah' al fresco on one of the pillars of the
church of St. Augustine in Eome. This picture, which has

THE ' P R O P H E T ISAIAH.'

107

more of Michael Angelo's manner in it than any other
work of Kaphael's—perhaps just for the very reason
that he endeavoured in this painting to lay aside his
own individuality—holds an inferior place among his
other works, in spite of the remarkable correctness of
the drawing.

The figure is somewhat clumsy, and

there is a want of expression in the countenance; besides, though restored by Daniele da Volterra, it is now
much destroyed.

That even at that time the painting

did not afford fall satisfaction is evidenced by the
following circumstance : Eaphael demanded fifty scudi
for it; the price was, however, considered too high, and
the execution of the other frescoes in the church was
not conferred upon him.*

Among the other pictures

belonging to this same period is the portrait of a lady
in the Tribune at Florence, in which sometimes the
Fornarina has been endeavoured to be recognised,
sometimes Vittoria Colonna, sometimes the Duchess Elizabeth of Urbino, and sometimes Beatrice d'Este, the
wife of Lodovico Sforza.

Passavant,f however, gives

plausible reasons for considering the picture to be a
certain Beatrice Pio of Ferrara.
* See Appendix, note civ.

There are also a porf See Appendix, note cv.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

108

trait of Bindo Altoviti, a Florentine youth, twenty-two
years of age, with fair hair and blue eyes, now in the
Pinakothek at Munich ;* and the c Madonna del? Impannata' (so called from the window in the background, covered with a sort of linen curtain): this
picture, however, is not entirely the work of Eaphael's
own hand, and may even perhaps have been executed
later; it is now in the Pitti Palace.
there

Besides these,

are the ' Madonna dell' Passeggio,' in the

Bridgewater Grallery in London; the ' Madonna with
the Standing Child,' in the possession of Mr. Mackintosh in England (called the c Madonna della Torre ' f ) :
this picture also probably left the atelier of the master
without any special part in its production having been
taken by himself.

And, lastly, there are the 'Holy

Family ' in Naples, painted for Leonello da Carpi, Lord
of Meldola; and the ' Madonna del Pesce, with the
Archangel Eaphael, St. Jerome, and the young Tobit,'
who is holding a fish. This painting is now in the
Museum at Madrid, and is a large altar-picture; it was
engraved by Steinla in 1856, in large folio size.

From

the power and repose of its colouring, it is most
* See Appendix, note cvi.

f See Appendix, note cvii.

LA STANZA D' ELIODOEO.

109

effective even at the present day, although it has in some
parts suffered by having been transferred from wood to
canvas by Bonnemaison in Paris, and it has moreover
been retouched by no skilful hand.*
Eaphael next proceeded in the decoration of the
second hall of the Vatican, which, from the principal
painting in it, is called La Stanza d' Eliodoro.

In this

hall is depicted the divine protection which the church
enjoys, as well as its safety from dangers without and
within.

During the lifetime of Pope Julius II., how-

ever, who died in 1513, the master only completed the
' Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple,' and the
' Miracle of Bolsena.'

In the year 1514, these were fol-

lowed by two wall paintings, the ' March of Attila' and
the ' Deliverance of Peter from Prison;' by four ceiling
paintings, c Grod appearing to Noah,' ' Abraham's Sacrifice,' ' Jacob's Dream of the Heavenly Ladder,' and ' Grod
appearing to Moses in the Burning Bush;' and by
twelve allegorical figures and four Hermae, serving as
Caryatidse and socle-pictures under the wall frescoes.
Lastly, he executed six small pictures in the window
recesses, some of which are now quite unknown, or have

* See Appendix, note cviii.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

110

been newly painted.

These were, ' Joseph before Pha-

raoh,' ' The Eed Sea/ ' Moses receiving the Tables of
the Law/ 'The Annunciation/ ' A Pope celebrating Mass,
and surrounded by Four Ecclesiastics/ and the (Emperor
Constantine giving up the City of Rome to Pope Sylvester.'

Raphael received 1,200 ducats in gold for all

these works together.

The gold ducat or 'fiorino'

had, according to the standard of 1269, a value of 711^
grains of fine silver; it was therefore equal to five
shillings and sevenpence of our money.

According to

this, our artist therefore received 335£.*
The most distinguished of all the pictures we have
named is indisputably the ' Mass of Bolsena,' in which
Raphael represented

' t h e miraculous assistance of

(rod to His church in confuting the unbelievers in
the sacred mysteries;' while in ' Heliodorus ' he intended to exhibit ' the divine protection vouchsafed to
the church in her outward relations.' f

In the year

1263, in the time of Pope Urban IV., a priest, doubting the miracle of transubstantiation, was, according to tradition, brought back to the faith in the
church of Sta. Cristina at Bolsena, by the miraculous
* See Appendix, note cix.

f See Appendix, note ex.

THE 'MASS OF BOLSENA.'

Ill

flowing of blood from the Host, as he was himself celebrating Mass. This story forms the subject of the firstmentioned painting, the colouring of which is well
preserved, and, though almost ten years before the
Venetian school reached its prime, it displays all the
technical superiority of that style.

All that which we

admire in Titian's works—' the overwhelming power and
warmth of his tints, the tender subordinate feeling of
his transitions, his half tints, and his blending of
colours, with all his rich energetic manner,'—all this
is to be found in its highest perfection in this incomparable painting.*

The design and conception of the

whole equals the beauty of the colouring.

Eumohr

w^as right when he asserted that the two levers of the
political affairs of Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century—namely, the priesthood and the German
soldiery—have been nowhere so clearly and objectively
represented as here.

The upper group in the picture

exhibits Julius II. with some of his cardinals and
pliable spiritual courtiers—affording a strong contrast
to the German bluntness and honest stubbornness displayed in the figures of the Swiss guards.

* See Appendix, note cxi

112

RAPHAEL SANTI.

The ' Heliodorus' is rather more carelessly executed;
but still, in this painting also, we see in some portions
the original colouring in all its power and freshness.
In its subject, the work is in nowise inferior to the
' Mass of Bolsena;' and for this reason it is especially
worthy of observation, that in this painting Eaphael
first represented, after the manner of Michael Angelo
and Leonardo da Vinci, not only figures in rest or in
calm action, but also the violent and rapid movements
of both men and animals.

Dramatic passion, which the

earlier painters never thought of producing, is expressed
even here with most masterly power; and this is a fresh
proof how rapidly Kaphael's genius grasped every new
theme and fitted itself for its execution.
In the picture of the ' Deliverance of Peter' it is
especially the distribution of light and shade which
makes it so effective.
three parts.

The whole may be divided into

In the two first, Eaphael makes the light

proceed from the supernatural lustre of the Angel who
is liberating the Apostle, while in the third, the light
comes from the torch held by one of the watchmen, and
from the moon in the cloudy heaven.
The execution of the tf Attila' is also very masterly.
The figures of the Apostles Peter and Paul are espe-

THE ' ATTILA.'

113

cially life-like in outline and brilliant in colour; they
appear with drawn swords on the left side of the
picture, above the Pope, who is riding along calmly
and solemnly on a grey horse.

Most effective, too, are

the countenances in the papal train, all of which are
portraits, and in contrast to these we see Attila with his
hordes, as well as two men riding on wild horses, to the
right in the foreground; still the horses appear somewhat too clumsy and thick—after Raphael's manner,*
who, in this respect, certainly never reached the highest
stage of perfection—though the peculiarity in the breed
of Eoman horses, even at the present day, may afford in
some measure an excuse or explanation for this.

The

historical part of the picture is as follows:—'The
great Bishop of Eome, Leo L, was in the year 452
marching forward with negotiations of peace to meet the
all-conquering King of the Huns, who was approaching Eome. On the banks of the Oglio, near the fortress
of Grovernolo, he met Attila, and presented him with
gifts, according to the custom of the time, in consequence of which he retreated; a subsequent legend,
however, represented this retreat of Attila as caused by

* See Appendix, note cxii.
I

114

RAPHAEL SANTI.

the miraculous interference of the Apostle Peter.

As

the long-desired expulsion of the French from Italy
took place at the time of the origin of the painting,
Pope Leo X. having succeeded, with the help of the
Swiss, in overcoming Louis XII. in 1513, Eaphael represented Leo X. in the figure of the Pope.
The socle pictures, lastly, were flattering allusions to
the rule of this Pope.

They represented 'Keligion,'

'Law,' ' Peace,' * Protection,' ' Nobility,' 'Commerce/
'Naval Affairs,' 'Navigation,' 'Plenty,' 'Cattle-breeding,' ' Agriculture,' and ' Grape-gathering.'

According

to their Italian denominations, they were all female
figures, which, painted in grey and gold, have become
much injured.

Some of them were completely reno-

vated by Carlo Maratti and his pupils, in the years
1702 and 1703.

115

CHAPTEE V.
RAPHAEL UNDER LEO X.
1513-1520.
JULIUS II. AND LEO X.—THE LOGGIE—THE

CARTOONS—RAPHAEL

DECORATES THE STANZA DELL' INCENDIO—THE SALA Dl COSTANTINO
—THE

SALA DE' PALAFRENIERI

RAPHAEL—THE

THE INFLUENCES SURROUNDING

COURT OF LEO X.

RAPHAEL'S PORTRAITS—THE

PROPHETS AND SIBYLS—THE GALATEA—RAPHAEL'S VIEWS OF ART
RAPHAEL'S ARCHITECTURAL WORKS—APPOINTED ARCHITECT OF ST.
P E T E R ' S — H I S DESIGN FOR THE COURT OF THE VATICAN—PASSAVANT'S
OPINION OF HIS ARCHITECTURAL SKILL

THE UNIVERSALITY OF HIS

GENIUS

LO SPASIMO D I SICILIA—

THE MADONNA DELLA SEDIA

THE MADONNA D I SAN SISTO—THE TRANSFIGURATION—RAPHAEL'S
ILLNESS AND DEATH.

IT is to Pope Julius II. that art owes the determination
to call forth the youthful and fertile genius of Eaphael
into fuller development, by the commission to adorn
the halls of the Vatican with great historical pictures \
for, without such a commission, it is probable that, in
the short career of the artist, he would have entered
upon nothing, or at least upon nothing of the same
I 2

RAPHAEL SANTI.

116

magnitude.

This energetic Maecenas, therefore, in the

course of a pontificate of scarcely ten years—that is,
from October 18, 1503, to February 15, 1513—led
the art of the tivo greatest masters of his time (for
we must here again call to mind Michael Angelo's
Sistine Chapel) to that unattained height to which all
after generations have looked up with devout amazement, without ever being able to produce anything
similar.

It is true the Pope possessed but little learn-

ing, yet his love of genius and his energy of will
compensated for this, and, as Eumohr beautifully remarks,* inspired him, in his intercourse with two great
men, with foresight of the achievements of which
their talent was capable, with the belief in possibility
of what was still untried, with courage for great undertakings, and, lastly, with the power to guard against
the divisions which deprive weak characters of the
means of greatness.
Julius's successor, Leo X., on the contrary, who as
a patron of art is ever ranked far higher by the
historian of letters than he rightly deserves, was certainly a highly cultivated ecclesiastical prince, but,

* See Appendix, note cxiii.

117

LEO X.

unlike his predecessor, he was neither a politician, nor
was he distinguished for nobility of character.

In the

midst of learned researches and art, he was often delighted with the most empty and even obscene pastimes.

The ' Notizie inedite di Eaffaello da Urbino,'

only lately discovered by the Marchese

Giuseppe

Campori in the archives of the Este family in Modena,*
and there published, tell us that the tossing of monks
in a blanket, and the foot-races of naked men, were
occasionally the diversions of the Pope.

The narrow

interests of his house—he was, as all the world knows,
a Medicean—a certain luxurious free-thinking character, the inertia of a pleasure-loving mind of no
great depth, but with ready powers of comprehension,
and a trifling superficial participation in every possible
matter—all these took precedence of the true duties of
his office; he wasted his colossal resources in his immoderate love of ostentation, and all his artistic undertakings lacked, in consequence, grandness of design
and energy of execution.

Thus it was that, while

Julius II. had exclusively occupied KaphaePs time and
creative power, Leo X., with all his high personal

* See Appendix, note cxiv.

118

RAPHAEL SANTI.

esteem and admiring friendship, left him full leisure
to bestow his best powers on subordinate work for
distant churches and wealthy citizens.

After the com-

pletion of the Stanza d'Eliodoro, in which the mind
of Julius II. was fully carried out, Eaphael painted
for the new Pope, during a period of more than seven
years, nothing but the sketches for the Loggie, a
number of cartoons on canvas, the frescoes in the
Stanza

dell' Incendio (these latter, however, only

partially), two designs for the Sala di Costantino, and
little else; whilst, within five years, he had executed
for Julius II. far more and far greater works.
The Loggie are in the vestibule which opens towards
the courtyard, and leads, in the second story of the
Vatican, from the staircase to the apartments, consisting of thirteen dome-like divisions.

These contain

forty-eight representations from the Old, and four from
the New Testament, all of the highest antique beauty,
and, besides these, arabesque ornaments on the walls
and pillars, exhibiting the richest and most playful
fancy; and, lastly, twelve pictures, as if in relief, of a
golden brown metallic colour, in the socle below the
windows, the small sketches for which Eaphael himself
drew out in sepia, giving up the execution in fresco to

THE LOGGIE.

119

his pupils Francesco Penni, Pellegrino da Modena,
Polidoro da Caravaggio, Perino del Vaga, Giovanni da
Udine, and others, under the direction of Griulio
Eomano.

We have some striking remarks of Grothe

upon these Loggie in his paper, *Von Arabesken,'
though in his ' Italienische Beise' he asserts, with a
certain avowed partiality,* that these ingenious trifles
ought not to be looked at after the great figures of
Michael Angelo's fresco paintings in the Sistine Chapel,
and that these biblical stories, beautiful as they are,
cannot stand the test of those.f

In the first-mentioned

passage, however, the poet, comparing the arabesques
of the Loggie with similar productions by the ancients,
thus expresses himself:—' Those famous arabesques
with which Eaphael decorated a part of the Loggie of
the Vatican are indeed beautiful in another sense; it
is as if he had wished to show lavishly what he could
devise, and what the skilful workmen who surrounded
him could execute.

There is therefore here none of

that wise parsimony of the ancients, who only endeavoured, as it were, to complete one building, that they
might be able to enjoy i t ; but here is an artist who

See Appendix, note CXY.

f See Appendix, note cxvi.

120

RAPHAEL SANTL

worked for the sovereign of the world, and who desired
as much as his master did to erect a monument of
profuse abundance.'
From 1515 to 1516, Eaphael worked, with the
assistance of Francesco Penni and Giovanni da Udine,
at the coloured cartoons for the ten tapestries to be
executed at Arras in wool, silk, and gold.*

These

tapestries were originally intended for the lower wall
of the Sistine Chapel, but since 1814, after various
wanderings, they have been removed to the upper
apartment of the Vatican.

They represent ten events

in the history of the Apostles.

Only seven, however,

of these cartoons are at present in existence, and these
are in the palace at Hampton Court.f
are—the (Miraculous

Their subjects

Draught of Fishes,' the ' Pasce

oves meas,' ' St. Peter and St. John curing the Lame
Man,' the (Death

of Ananias,' 'Elymas struck with

Blindness,' ' Paul and Barnabas at Lystra,' and ' Paul
preaching at Athens'—all large water-colour paintings,
wonderfully grand in design, and for the most part
still retaining a marvellous clearness and freshness of
colouring.

The cartoons representing the ' Stoning of
* See Appendix, note cxvii.
t Now in the Museum at South Kensington*

THE CARTOONS.

121

Stephen,' the ' Conversion of St. Paul,' and ' St. Paul
in the Prison at Philippi,' have been lost.

Eaphael

received for these cartoons 434 ducats in gold.

He also

prepared a cartoon for a tapestry, which has since been
lost, and which was designed for the altar in the
Sistine Chapel. The subject was thQ ' Coronation of
the Virgin.'

Twelve other cartoons for tapestries,

representing events out of the life of Christ, and an
allegorical representation

of Eeligion, Justice, and

Charity, of which but few fragments exist at the
present day, were ordered by Francis I. of France,
probably in 1519, on occasion of the canonisation of
Francesco di Paolo, as an offering to the Church of
St. Peter's.

The subjects of these twelve cartoons

were—the ' Murder of the Innocents' (forming three
narrow tapestries), the ' Adoration of the Shepherds,'
the ' Adoration of the Kings,' the ' Presentation in the
Temple,' the ' Eesurrection of Christ,' ' Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene,' c Christ's Descent into Hell,'
6

Christ speaking with the Disciples at Emmaus,' the

< Ascension of Christ,' and the ' Outpouring of the Holy
Spirit.'

As Eaphael, however, died the year after the

order, he had not advanced far in the work, and his
pupil, Griulio Eomano, undertook the completion of it

122

KAPHAEL SANTI.

in conjunction with others.

The tapestries which were

thus finished are also now hung up in the upper apartment of the Vatican, named after Pius V.
From the year

1515, Eaphael was engaged in

decorating the Stanza dell' Incendio with representations of the papal power; that is, partly with the
miraculous power dwelling in the church itself, and
partly with its sovereignty over all temporal authorities.
Among these representations, the 6 Incendio di Borgo'—
that is, the burning of the quarter adjoining St. Peter's,
called Borgo Nuovo, which took place during the
pontificate of Leo IV.—is conspicuous above all for its
dramatic interest, for its beauty of composition, and
masterly power of execution.

The three other wall-

paintings in this stanza, which is also called the Sala
di Torre Borgia, were for the most part executed by
Eaphael's pupils.

They represent 'Leo the Tenth

taking the oath,' the ' Coronation of Charlemagne,' and
the < Victory over the Saracens by Leo the Fourth, in
the harbour of Ostia, not far from the mouth of the
Tiber.'

Besides these, there are six socle pictures and

four small paintings in the window recesses, for the
most part after designs by Giulio Eomano.
In the Sala di Costantino, the wall paintings of which,

THE SALA DI COSTANTINO.

123

referring to the foundation of the temporal power of
the Popes under Constantine the Great, were not completed until after Eaphael's death, the ' Victory of
Constantine over the opposition Emperor Maxentius on
the Ponte molle in Eome,' was executed by Griulio
Eomano from a design of Eaphael's.

Eaphael also

sketched a drawing for ' Constantine's Address to his
Warriors,' and he made the cartoons for two allegorical
figures of (Justice'

and (Mercy,' the latter of which was

also executed in oils by Griulio Eomano and Francesco
Penni. On the other hand, in the ' Baptism of Constantine,' in the c Donation of Eome to Pope Sylvester,' and
in the eight Popes, with the other fourteen allegorical
figures and socle pictures, he took no part at all.

Of

all these fresco paintings, the (Battle of Constantine' is
by far the most important as regards its artistic merit.
I t presents, as Vischer * strikingly remarks, a combination of all classes of imagination ; we see in it the mind
of the dramatic poet in the great crisis represented; we
see historical fancy blended with pure human feeling
in the beautiful group of father and son; we see sublime fancy blended with beautiful simplicity in the

* See Appendix, note cxviii.

124

RAPHAEL SANTI.

youth who belongs to this group; lastly, we see the
creation of an animated action rich in figures, the
grasping of a vast material with the clearest arrangement, so that, even in the wildest tumult of the fight,
distinct groups are always to be seen, and there is
nowhere a confusion, such as that in Rubens's
Judgment' in Munich.

c

Last

Only Constantine himself is

seated too far on his horse, a fault which often appears
in others of Raphael's horsemen, and which probably
proceeded from that want of power in animal-painting
to which we have before referred.
Of the apostles and saints in the Sala de' Palafrenieri
(an ante-room for the papal household, decorated by
Giovanni da Udine with representations of the menagerie of Leo

X.) nothing is now

in existence,

though Marc Anton's engravings have preserved the
figures of the apostles.

These apostles and saints were,

according to Vasari's statement,* sketched by Raphael
himself, and were executed in niches on a green ground.
For the sake of completeness, the droll designs
must be mentioned which Raphael placed on the
gate leading from the Stanza della Segnatura to the

See Appendix, note cxix.

PAINTING AT LA MAGLIANA.

Stanza di Torre Borgia.

125

The story upon which they

are based is the following:—-The Abbe Baraballo, a
vain improvisatore, who considered himself a greater
poet than Petrarch, was ordered by Pope Leo X.,
in ridicule, to ride upon an elephant, amid drums
and trumpets, to the Capitol, to be crowned there as
poet. At the bridge of St. Angelo, however, the animal
threw the hero, and the latter must have been glad
enough to get away with nothing worse than alarm
and insult.
We know, moreover, from the Modenese records
which we before mentioned,* that Eaphael himself
painted the decorations for a comedy, to be performed
at the Vatican in the presence of the Pope.

At La

Magliana, a papal hunting-seat about five miles from
Eome, close by the Tiber, a fresco painting, now
partially

destroyed,

was

executed

at

Leo

X.'s

command by one of Eaphael's best pupils, after a
design by the master.

This painting represented the

torture of St. Felicitas, and it has been engraved by
Marc Anton.

The work belongs probably to the last

few years of Eaphael's life.

* See Appendix, note cxx.

1-26

EAPHAEL SAXTI.

Ever since the middle of the fifteenth century, the
higher efforts of study in Italy had been directed almost entirely to classic antiquity, and hence, in noble
natures, a considerable extension of view and a life
full of mind and feeling had been produced; whilst
lesser souls drew from it the germ of moral destruction,
inasmuch as they regarded the new atmosphere, as is
always the case, as a convenient cloak under which
they could free themselves from the Christian principles of a strict morality, and give the reins to their
unbridled lusts.

We must take this circumstance into

consideration, if we would understand the character of
the court of Leo X., and the manifold influences
which the artist Eaphael received from the different
prominent members of the papal society.

Immediately

after the commencement of Leo X.'s Pontificate,
he once more met his friend from Urbino, the Count
Baldassare Castiglione of Casatico near Mantua, the
gifted author of the famous work ' II Cortegiano,'* in
which the ideal of refined society is depicted, and a
man who soon became the centre of a distinguished
circle, on account of his active zeal for art and science.

* See Appendix, note cxxi.

FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES.

1-27

The Pope treated him with the greatest distinction, as
a polished courtier and an ambassador from the Duke
of Urbino, and Eaphael painted his portrait, it appears,
twice—once the head alone, uncovered, and once a halflength one. The former is now in the Palace Torlonia,
in Eome; the other, by far the superior, is in the
Louvre.

Another very intimate friend of Eaphael's

was the

learned

Pietro

Bembo, whom Leo X.

appointed as his secretary in the year 1513, and who
was subsequently made a cardinal by Pope Paul I I I .
His Latin prose and poetry were considered to bear
a resemblance to that of Cicero and Virgil, and his
Italian style reminded his readers of Boccaccio and
Petrarca.*

He remained in Eome till the year 1519,

and through him Eaphael became acquainted with the
two distinguished Venetian authors, Andrea Navagero
and Agostino Beazzano, whose portraits he painted for
him in the spring of 1516.

The original picture,

painted on wood, seems to have utterly disappeared,
but a second likeness on canvas, which Passavant is
inclined to regard as the work of a Venetian, is in the
Palace Doria in Borne, f

* See Appendix, note cxxii.

Eaphael was also on terms

f See Appendix, note cxxiii.

KAPHAEL SANTI.

128

of intimacy with the three greatest poets of his time,
Lodovico Ariosto, Jacopo Sannazzaro, and Antonio
Tebaldeo.

With the first, who was probably only once

in Eome after the accession of Leo X., he carried
on a correspondence; while the two latter, who were
summoned to Eome by Leo, lived there in constant
intercourse with him.

In the year 1516, he painted

Tebaldeo in oils; the portrait, however, is lost.

San-

nazzaro also was painted by him; yet the half-length
and much retouched portrait of a man of about sixty
years of age, with a black cap on his long white hair
and in a simple black coat with a narrow white collar,
which in 1850 came into the possession of the Emperor
of Eussia on the sale of the art-treasures of King
William II. at the Hague, is not the long and vainly
sought for original; a fact which Dr. Waagen has convincingly proved in his treatise published in 1864 at
Munich, entitled

4

The Paintings in the

Hermitage at St. Petersburg.'

Imperial

Both poets were placed

by Eaphael in his fresco painting of the ' Parnassus.' *
Among the noble patrons of our artist, we must
mention the Cardinals Giulio de' Medici, Bernardo

* See Appendix, note cxxiv.

GIULIO DE' MEDICI.

129

Divizio da Bibbiena, Eaphael Biario, Baldassare Turini
da Pescia, and Giovanni Battista Branconio of Aquila.
He even appointed the two latter as executors of his
will.

Griulio de' Medici, a natural son of Griuliano,

the brother of Leo X., ascended the papal chair in
1523 as Clement VIII.

Eaphael has immortalised

him ol fresco in his wall painting, the ' Victory over
the Saracens,' and also in that famous knee-piece of
Pope Leo X., which he painted in oils about the year
1518, where he is placed with the Cardinal de' Eossi.
This picture, which is now in the Pitti Palace, is one
of his most distinguished portraits, unsurpassed especially in the natural imitation of the details of the
dress.

Many other of Raphael's best works, which we

have yet to mention, we owe to the orders of this
grave and good man.
It is probable that he painted the wise statesmanlike Bibbiena twice in oils: one portrait of him is now
in the Museum at Madrid; the other, executed for
the most part by the hand of a pupil, is in the Pitti
Palace.

As Bibbiena lived in the upper story of the

Vatican, over Eaphael's Loggie, and possessed no house
of his own, he commissioned Eaphael, in 1516, to
decorate his bath-room (called, for no intelligible
K

130

RAPHAEL SANTI.

reason, *il retiro di Giuseppe,' although this portion
of the palace was not built until after Julius's death)
with mythological representations, painted, after the
taste of the ancients, on a dark reddish-brown ground.
Eaphael, however, only furnished the sketches, and
certainly noi even all of these.

The ' Birth of Venus,'

' Venus and Cupid riding on Dolphins,' ' Venus complaining to Cupid of her Wounds,' ' Venus drawing a
Thorn from her Foot,' < Six Cupids as Conquerors,' and
6

Cupid and Pan,' betray certainly a true Eaphael-like

grace; whilst ' Venus and Adonis,' as well as ' Jupiter
and Antiope,' lead us to infer the hand of Griulio
Eomano; and 4 Vulcan and Pallas' even of some less
talented pupil.

Much of it is destroyed; the ceiling

pictures are scarcely now to be recognised.

What

approval these representations met with is not only
testified by the engravings of Marc Anton, which were
executed at the time, but also by the beautiful repetition of them in the old vestibule of the Villa Palatum, at that time probably belonging to the Duca
Mattei, and now to the Englishman, Mr. Mills.

They

are all executed alfresco by Giulio Romano.
Lastly, in the court of Leo X., there was the
librarian Tommaso Inghirami, a man distinguished

TOMMASO INGHIRAMI.

131

for his learning, and belonging to a noble family of
Volterra.

He had been appointed Bishop of Eagusa

in 1510 by Julius I I . ; he had performed the duties
of secretary in the conclave in which Leo X. was
elected Pope; and he bore the surname of Phaedra,
because in the performance of Seneca's tragedy of
' Hippolytus,' in which he had played the part of
Phaedra, he had distinguished himself by his extraordinary presence of mind.

When something acci-

dentally fell into disorder in the machinery, and the
performance of the play was in consequence interrupted, he entertained the spectators so well by his
improvised Latin verses that they clapped the loudest
applause.

Eaphael painted an excellent portrait of

this somewhat portly man in 1513, in the red dress
of the office he held in the conclave.

The light is

managed almost in Holbein's manner.

The painting

is now an ornament of the Pitti Palace.
The portrait of a violin-player, bearing the date of
the year 1518, now in the Palace Sciarra Colonna in
Eome, is most attractive from its grace and beauty.
I t probably represents Andrea Marone of Brescia, also
a favourite companion of the Pope, who delighted in
his improvisations on the bass-viol.
K 2

At about the

132

RAPHAEL SANTI.

same time, or rather earlier, the following portraits
were executed by Eaphael: that of a Cardinal (Borgia?), in the Borghese Palace in Eome; that of the
Archdeacon Frederic Carondelet, in the Duke of
Grafton's possession, in London; that of a young man,
in the possession of the Duke of Alba, in Madrid;
and some others, regarding which some uncertainty
prevails as to Eaphael's share in their execution.
We may as well at once mention here the other portraits of the Medicean family which Eaphael painted.
There is the half-length figure of Lorenzo de' Medici,
Duke of Urbino, executed in 1518, but only now existing in copies at Florence and Montpellier; and the
half-length portrait, executed probably in 1514, of his
brother Griuliano, the youngest brother of Leo X., who
had the command of the papal troops in Eome, and
who died in 1516.

The original of this also is lost;

a copy of it, by Allori, is now in the Uffizi, in Florence.

Lastly, Eaphael also painted the little Hippo-

lito de' Medici, the natural son of Giuliano, as a page,
in the fresco picture of the ' Coronation of Charlemagne.'
Vischer has beautifully expressed in what the principal charm of the portraits of Eaphael lies. ' Eaphael,'

RAPHAEL'S PORTRAITS.

133

he says,* ' has a magic charm in his lines, an undulating grace, an oval form in his heads, an inclination,
a leaning of the head and neck, an outline of figure,
hands, and legs, and in all this an expression of
heavenly love and purity of being, which belongs to
himself alone, and can never return again.

With this

guide of the law of beauty in his hand, he is absolutely sure to adhere to the line of truth, even when
depicting individual traits; and while hitherto this
point had been more carefully cultivated by the Florentine school than by that of Umbria, which surpassed it in many other respects, it was now this
very man, an Umbrian, who stood highest even in,
this also, and by further extension and development
of that which Leonardo da Vinci had done before
him, formed in the Italian style that absolute standard
for the union of normal beaut} with individual traits.
The essentially characteristic portrait-like traits in
different men could not have been transformed into
beauty with more wonderful expulsion of all that is
unessential, accidental, and disturbing to the grandeur
of the style.

The true portrait assisted him in this,

* See Appendix, note cxxv.

134

RAPHAEL SANTI.

that while he refined it, he yet brought it into closer
empirical similarity.

His colour he took, in all its

warmth of feeling, from his master (Perugino), bringing it in his portraits to the perfection of Venetian
colouring; this, however, only in a few, for on this
point a new way was opened for his adoption.5
In resuming the chronological series of KaphaePs
works, after this digression, we must first mention the
four ' Prophets' a n d ' Sibyls,' in fresco, ordered by Agostino Chigi, a rich merchant of Siena, for a chapel in
the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Eome, and
which probably were begun in 1514.

If he did not

attain in these to the grand and original manner of
Michael Angelo, he yet decidedly surpassed his rival
in the beauty of his forms, especially as regards the
' Sibyls.'

The ' Sibyls' were placed over an arch to the

right, at the entrance to the church: there were,
enumerating them from left to right, the Cumaean
Sibyl, the Persian, the Phrygian, and the old Tiburtine—all represented, in harmony with the nature of
the master, as lovely Greek Muses; while Michael
Angelo had conceived them as beings of remote antiquity, as mighty and gigantic prophetesses of ancient

THE ' SIBYLS' AND 'PROPHETS.'

and mysterious wisdom.*

135

T h e ' Prophets,' in the upper

division of the chapel, on the wall of the arch leading
to the altar, above the ' Sibyls,' represented Daniel with
a roll, David in his sacerdotal habits, Jonah looking up
towards heaven, and Hosea sitting down.

They were

all executed by Timoteo Viti after Eaphael's cartoons.
Grothe has with justice rectified Volkmann's verdict,
when he said of the ' Sibyls:' c The drawing is accurate,
but the composition weak, though probably this may
be attributed to the inconvenience of their position.'
To this Grothe replied, in his * Italienische Reise:'f
* Eaphael was never fettered by the space allowed him
by the architecture; it far rather belongs to the greatness and grace of his genius, that he understood how
to fill and to decorate every space in the most ornamental manner, as he conspicuously proved in the
Farnesina.

Even the splendid pictures of the /Mass

of Bolsena,' the 6 Deliverance of the imprisoned St.
Peter,' and the 'Parnassus' would not have been
as invaluable as they are, without the wonderful restriction of the space that contains them.

* See Appendix, note cxxvi.

Equally

f See Appendix, note cxxvii.

136

EAPHAEL SANTL

so with t h e " Sibyls," the concealed symmetry on which
everything in the composition depends is executed
in the most gifted manner; for as in the organism
of nature, so in art also, the perfection of life is
exhibited within the narrowest limits.'
To the same year belongs the fresco of the c Galatea,'
which Eaphael painted in the hall of the house built
by Baldassare Peruzzi for Agostino Chigi, now the Villa
Farnesina of the ex-King of Naples.

Vasari* has

placed the representations from the fable of Cupid and
Psyche, in the Loggia of the same villa, among the
works at the end of our artist's career; but probably*
with the exception of one very beautiful Grace seen
from the back, in the picture where Cupid is showing
his beloved one to the Graces, they were all executed
in fresco by Giulio Eomano, Francesco Penni, and
Giovanni da Udine, after the cartoons of the master.
The ' Galatea,' on the other hand, is almost entirely the
work of his own hand* and it is equally charming from
the beauty of the design, and the exact and admirable
symmetry of the arrangement, as from the brightness
and cheerfulness of the colouring, and the lively natu-

* See Appendix, note cxxviii.

THE ' GALATEA.

ralness of the representation.

137

The figure of ' Galatea'

surpasses perhaps everything which we possess in beautiful and nude female forms; it is therefore especially
interesting to learn from a letter which Eaphael wrote
to his patron, the Count of Castiglione, that, for want of
a beautiful model, he created this figure from a certain
idea of beauty which hovered before his mind.

' With

regard to the Galatea,' thus he writes in this letter
(which is otherwise worthy of notice, and we shall refer
to it again), c I should consider myself a great artist if
half the beautiful things were true which your lordship
writes to me, but I recognise in your praises the love
you bear me.

I must say, that to paint a beautiful

woman, I ought to see many suc\ and, moreover, I
ought to have your lordship near me to assist me with
your judgment.
beautiful

As, however, both good judges

and

women are rare, I have worked upon

certain idea that presents itself to my mind.

a

Whe-*

ther this idea possesses any artistic excellence, I know
not; but I have done my best to attain it.'
We can well imagine the extent of useless sesthetical
talk which this apparent acknowledgment of Kaphael's
absolute idealism has caused.

In my own opinion the

great painter, full of all that Italian gentilezza which

RAPHAEL SANTI.

138

expressed itself in refined and polite flattery towards
his noble patron, only intended to say what everyone
feels who examines deeply into his works, namely, that
with his art it was no slavish imitation of the forms of
nature, but a power of representing an idea conceived
by him, according to the forms which the visible
creation exhibits ' a s consistent with its spiritual
nature;' in a word, it was (the pourtrayal of a world
idealised in beauty.' *

Art imitates nature, as we all

know, but at the same time she goes far beyond her, in
that she realises that which nature cannot always
succeed in realising.

Thus wrote also Federigo Zuc-

charo: ' Soleva dire Eaffaelo che il pittore ha obbligo
di far le cose non come le fa la natura, ma come ella le
dovrebbe fare.' f
Soon after, in the year 1515, Eaphael painted <St.
Cecilia' for the chapel founded by the subsequently
canonised Elena Duglioli del Oglio, in the church
of San Giovanni in Monte:

the painting is now

in the Pinacoteca at Bologna.

This picture, which is

seven feet three inches high and four feet six inches
broad, is among the most admired creations of the
master.

Grdthe thus significantly expressed himself

* See Appendix, note cxxix.

t See Appendix, note cxxx.

GOTHE'S VERDICT UPON RAPHAEL.

139

respecting it, October 18, 1786:* cHe (that is, Kaphael) always exactly achieves what others would wish
to achieve, and I will not now say more regarding
this painting than that it is by him.

There are five

saints there side by side, who in nowise concern us,
but whose existence is so perfect that we wish the
picture could endure for ever, until we also are ready
for departure.'

This splendid picture is, however, un-

fortunately even now in a deplorable condition, having
been much injured and shamefully retouched in Paris
in the year 1803, when it was transferred from panel to
canvas; a fact which Passavant scarcely sufficiently
brings forward and acknowledges in his work, when
speaking of this painting (i. 254-256; ii. 180-183 ;
iii. 123-124), although his attention was specially
drawn to it by the artistic engraver, Professor Eugen
Eduard Schaffer, at Frankfort on the Main, who has
minutely studied the Bolognese original, and has narrowly discussed its Parisian history.

Most truly can

we assent to Nagler's verdict upon this painting: f

6

It

is full of calm devotion, like the solemn long-drawn
tones of old church melodies;' still we must not forget,
when we see the present condition of this work of art,
* See Appendix, note cxxxi.

f See Appendix, note cxxxii.

140

RAPHAEL SANTI.

what Kumohr wrote respecting it even in 1831,* therefore long before Passavant, in words that are full of truth:
e

This work is indeed at the present day so injured by

its restorer, that it is more like a copy than an original.'
Only in the head of St. Augustine do we still see the
true power and uniqueness' of Eaphael's brush. Among
the many copies that exist, the one now in the possession of Mr. Thomas du Boulay at Sandgate, in Kent,f
occupies a conspicuous place.

I t is very carefully

painted, and the detail is minutely executed.

Professor

Schaffer ascribes it to Agostino Caracci for weighty
reasons:\ it is executed, he says, on a smaller size>
and does not entirely reach the expression that lies
in the heads of the original, and often, as for example
in the figure of St. Paul, even wilfully (differs from the
painting.

This latter diversity seems to have been

caused by the desire to increase the impression produced by the original.

Not unimportant is the fact

that Eaphael followed pretty accurately in the execution of the picture the original sketch engraved by
Marc Anton, the complete genuineness of which, more-

* See Appendix, note cxxxiii.
\ See Appendix, note cxxxv.

f See Appendix, note cxxxiv.

ST. CECILIA.

141

over, Passavant considers doubtful; * but nevertheless
he happily departed from his original idea in the three
male figures, St. Paul, St. John, and St. Augustine.
In the sketch they appeared to him too separate, and
without the necessary relation to the principal figure;
in the painting, therefore, he connected them more
closely with the true point of his conception.

With

i

respect to the Magdalene,' also, he departed from his
sketch, which represents the saint in profile, looking up
with transport to the angelic glory, whilst in the painting she appears turned en face to the spectator; truly,
as Nagler remarks,f ' without showing any interest in
the deeper emotion which fills the minds of all
around her,' as they see St. Cecilia completely elevated
in listening to the harmonies of heaven.
At this same time the artist sent the ' Vision of
Ezekiel,' now in the Pitti Palace, to Bologna, to the
Count Vincenzo Ercolani.

In spite of its small size,

this picture produces a grand effect; the influence of
Michael Angelo in the composition is unmistakable.
A ' Birth of Christ,' which Eaphael painted for Count
Canossa in Verona, is now lost.

* See Appendix, note cxxxvi.

Paul Veronese and

t See Appendix, note cxxxvii.

142

RAPHAEL SANTI.

Taddeo Zuccharo are said to have made copies from it,
which, however, are likewise nowhere to be found.

To

the same period, too, belong the frescoes with which
Eaphael, in conjunction with others, adorned his villa in
the park of the Villa Borghese.

This villa was entirely

destroyed in the revolution in the year 1848; happily,
however, the Prince Borghese had removed, in 1844, the
three best frescoes of the third smaller apartment,
and had had them framed in his gallery at Eome.
One of them alone, the

4

Marriage of Alexander with

Eoxana,' is Eaphael's own composition; the two other
pictures are ascribed to Michael Angelo and Perino del
Vaga.

Grothe, who saw the villa while it was still un-

destroyed, remarks that e the little genii and full-grown
men painted on the walls, playing antics on scrolls and
mouldings, moving merrily to balance themselves,
apparently hurrying after some end, and doing all that
a love of motion can inspire,' seemed to him more in
the spirit of the antique than all Eaphael's other
arabesques; and he adds : ' It is all the more charming,
because he might have done so much here, but he
chose to do but little, and just what was sufficient.' *

* See Appendix, note cxxxviii.

AECHITECTUEAL WORKS.

143

We must here again interrupt our enumeration of
the Eaphael paintings, that we may give some brief
mention of his architectural and plastic works, for, like
Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the German
Albrecht Diirer, with whom he also stood on terms
of the most friendly and respectful intercourse, and
exchanged presents, his genius embraced all three
branches of the plastic art.

Eespecting the architec-

tural works of our master, a special volume appeared
under the title, 'Opere architettoniche di

Eaffaelo

Sanzio incise e dichiarate delP architetto Carlo Pontani'
(Eome, 1845).

I t consists of thirty-six sheets, the two

last of which, however, as Passavant has shown,* decidedly do not contain architectural plans designed by
Eaphael.
When Eaphael had gained great consideration and
wealth in Eome, and had gathered round him a number of superior pupils, and had begun to receive
commissions from all parts of Italy, he designed, with
the assistance of Bramante, his countryman and relative, at that time architect of St. Peter's Church, a
plan for a two-storied house for himself, which he

* See Appendix, note cxxxix.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

144

built entirely of brick, in 1513, in the Borgo Nuovo,
opposite the church of St. Peter's.

According to

Vasari's description in the ' Life of Bramante,' * this
was c a very beautiful and new invention,' thus to use
brick and mortar (Mavorato di mattoni e di getto
con casse'), instead of hewn stone in architectural
structures^

In the year 1514, Eaphael took possession

of his house.

The principal facade faced the square

of St. Peter's.

The lower story, built in rustic style,

had five arches, the central one of which contained
the entrance door, while the two others on each side
led to the stores.

The second story, with five win-

dows, with pediments and balustrades, was adorned
with rows of coupled pillars of the Doric order, halfprojecting, and standing on pedestals, and a capital of
the same order crowned the whole.

This facade, ac-

cording to the proportions added to the engraving
published in 1549 by Antonio Lafreri,f was a hundred and four palms broad, the ground floor was
twenty-nine palms high, and the upper story thirtyfour palms and six inches high.

Only the lower part

of the right corner pillar is now to be seen of the

* See Appendix, note cxl.

f See Appendix, note cxli.

APPOINTED ARCHITECT OF ST. PETER'&

building, which is almost entirely destroyed.

1|5

The

remainder has been partly rebuilt, partly incorporated
with the Palazzo Accoromboni.

Eaphael bequeathed

the house to his patron, Cardinal Bibbiena, who was in
no wise wealthy; he, however, died soon after Eaphael
(November

9, 1520), and

therefore

never

inha-

bited it.*
After the death of Bramante, Pope Leo X., in
accordance with the desire of the dying man, appointed
Eaphael by a brief dated August 1, 1514, architect of
St. Peter's, with a salary of three hundred ducati d' oro;
this, however, did not occur until after the artist had
sent in a model, which excited general admiration,
and an estimate of the cost of the building; thus
proving

his

especial

ability for such

an

office.

Eaphael's model has unhappily been lost, and the
ground plan alone is given us by Sebastiano Serlio in
the third book of his work, published by Scamozzi,
'Tutte 1'Opere d' Architettura' (Venice, 1545, second edition, 1584).

It is also to be found in plate

10 of Philippo Bonanni's 'Numismata summorum Pontificum Templi Vaticani Fabricam indicantia' (Borne,

* See Appendix, note cxlii.
L

RAPHAEL SANTI.

146

1696), but it is here erroneously assigned to Bramante.

Passavant * thinks that the plan, which is to

be found in the pamphlet in the Barberini Palace, containing architectural drawings by Griuliano da San Gallo,
has in it Eaphael's first design.

According to this, the

ground plan forms a Latin cross, with seven naves the
length of the building, the central one of which is
broad, and the three narrow naves on each side have
an outlet into the vestibule.

The choir is surrounded

by a wall built in a half-circle, leaving a private
passage between the outer surrounding walls, while
the tribunes of the side aisles, furnished with niches,
each, describe a small half-circle, formed by two
pilasters and twelve pillars in groups of four together.
The vestibule rests on thirty pillars (Serlio says thirtysix) ; only those at the extreme ends are coupled.
The pillars along the church are strengthened by
double pilasters, with niches between them.
On the whole, this design is less free and grand
than that given by Serlio, but even had this been
followed, St. Peter's Church would have been more
beautiful, and more in accordance with the taste of the

* See Appendix, note cxliii,

ST. PETER'S.

147

ancients, than in its present architecture, which is uncompact and heavy in parts, and a pure style is in no
degree preserved in its detail.

The effect of Eaphael's

plan would undoubtedly have been richer, and yet at
the same time calmer; and standing before the church,
the dome would have been at least seen, as the vestibule would have been lower, although even according
to this plan it would have been placed rather far
behind.

Now, as is well known, the dome, in spite of

its immense dimensions, is concealed from the eye of
the spectator standing before the front facade.

We

must, nevertheless, allow that Eaphael was in error
when he introduced the ground plan of a Latin cross
instead of that of the Greek, proposed by Bramante,
and subsequently with the utmost energy by Michael
Angelo also ; for the latter was in harmony with the
whole idea of the building, and although Eaphael's
plan was never executed, that frequent wavering
between the two ground plans, which may be ascribed
to his influence, has materially injured the effect of
the building in its final completion.*

How much

Eaphael's plan differed in all parts from that of
* See Appendix, note cxliv.
L z

KAPHAEL SANTI.

148

Bramante is shown by a medal, which Cardosso
executed in 1506.*
The delight of our master at his new office is manifested in the letter addressed to his uncle Ciarla on
July 1, 1514, therefore previous to the completion of
his appointment as architect of the cathedral—the same
letter in which he expresses himself so freely with
regard to his disinclination to marriage.

' With re-

spect to my residence in Kome,' he writes,f c my love
for the building of St. Peter's Church would always
prevent my remaining anywhere but here, for I have
now Bramante's

place.

What city in the world,

however, is more worthy than Eome?

What under-

taking more noble than that of St. Peter's ? For this
is the first temple in the world and the greatest
building ever seen, and it will cost more than a
million of money.

Imagine, the Pope has set aside

60,000 ducats yearly for the building, and he thinks
of nothing else.

He has given me an associate in a

monk of great experience, a man more than eighty
years old, and as the Pope sees that he can live but a
short time, and he has the reputation of great learn-

* See Appendix, note cxlv.

f See Appendix, note cxlyi.

ST. PETER'S.

149

ing, His Holiness has resolved to associate him with
me as an assistant, so that I may learn from him any
secret in architecture which he may possess, and thus
become more and more perfect in the art.*
is Fra Grioeondo.

His name

The Pope summons us to his pre*

sence every day, and speaks with us respecting the
building.'
Far more beautifully does Raphael express himself
respecting the building of St. Peter's in the letter to
Count Castiglione, which we have before quoted, and
in which he speaks of the ideal of the beautiful.
'Our holy father,' he there says* 'has laid a great
burden on my shoulders in the honour he has shown
me, in giving me the superintendence of the building
of St. Peter's.
it.

I hope, indeed, I shall not sink under

My chief confidence is that the model, which I

made of it, has pleased His Holiness, and has been
approved by many men of cultivated minds.

But I

carry my aspirations still higher: I ivould fain revive
the beautiful forms of the buildings of antiquity,

but

I know not whether the fate of Icarus is before me.
Vitruvius affords me some light, but not enough.' f

* See Appendix, note cxlvii.

f See Appendix, note cxlviii.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

150

From this we plainly see, and it is elsewhere confirmed, that Raphael, equally with Michael Angelo,
ranked the art of the ancients far beyond his own,
but that he lacked the true means for arriving at
a full understanding of Greek architecture, since at
the time in which he lived they were possessed by
none.

' Vitruvius ' was translated into Italian by the

learned Marco Fabio Calvo, to aid him in his conscientious studies.

The manuscript, containing mar-

ginal notes in his own handwriting, is now in the
possession of the Library at Munich.
A further proof of how great an interest Raphael
took in the office entrusted to him, of architect of the
cathedral, is the well-known papal brief of August 27,
1515,* in which, at his suggestion, the means were
given into his hands for procuring, at a reasonable
price, the stone necessary for the building of St.
Peter's, all Romans being prohibited, upon pain of
100 to 300 gold scudi, from hewing or appropriating
any stone dug from the ruins of Rome, without previously informing Raphael, and receiving his permission.

In the same manner, the Roman stonemasons

especially were not to manufacture antique blocks of
* See Appendix, note cxlix.

THE STUDY OF THE ANTIQUE.

151

marble with carved inscriptions unless Eaphael had
previously given his approval.

By this means he

managed to exercise a control over all the excavations
in Eome, and thus to save many monuments of ancient
art, which now constitute the
museums of the city.

ornaments of the

It was even before he entered

upon his office, an office which we may justly designate as that of a preserver of Eoman antiquities, that
the 'Laocoon' group (1506), the

€

Apollo Belvidere,'

the 'Torso of the Hercules,' and the groups of the
' N i l e ' and the ' Tiber,' as well as many others, were
discovered and placed in the Vatican.
Thus ever deeper and deeper did Eaphael advance
in the study of the Eoman antiquities, and in the few
last years of his life he was even engaged in a project,
perhaps in common with his patron Castiglione, for
making a complete plan of old Eome, and for restoring
the ancient buildings according to the remains still in
existence, and the descriptions left of them by old
authors in ground plans and sketches.

The interest

which this projec, met with in Eome is shown, among
many others, by the epigram of Colio Calcagnini of
Ferrara: *
* See Appendix, note cl.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

152

Tot proceres Romam, tarn longa exstruxerat setas,
Totque hostes, et tot ssecula diruerant.
Nunc Eomam in Eoma quasrit reperitque Eaphael.
Quaerere, magni hominis; sed reperire, Dei est.
Many a hero had built up Eome in many a year,
And many a foe and many a century had destroyed the work.
Eaphael now searches for Eome in Eome, and discovers it.
Such a search was the task of a great man; such a discovery
was that of a God.
How h e proceeded in his work, of which only some
designs, partly engraved, have come down to us, is
shown by the statement written for this purpose for
t h e Pope in the year 1519,* furnishing us also with an
evidence t h a t Eaphael undertook t h e work by order of
Leo X.

H e begins with acknowledging the superiority

of the ancient Bomans, to whom much was easy which
we consider impossible.

H e t h e n laments over t h e

destruction of ancient E o m e , in which even Popes h a d
taken a part.

H e has seen, h e says, as it were, t h e

remains of her, who was once queen of the world,
miserably destroyed.

('Vedendo quasi il cadavero di

quella nobil patria che 6 stata regina del mondo cosi
miseramente lacerato.')

H e then gives a summary of

* See Appendix, note cli.

ARCHITECTUEAL SKILL.

153

the monuments of different ages, he describes minutely
the manner in which he had taken the dimensions of
the old buildings, and he begs the Pope most urgently,
in conclusion, that they may be preserved.

Whether

or no the clever Gastiglione gave him his assistance in
the composition of this masterly letter of business, in
which, with the clearest explanation of purely practical
points, there is still full scope for indulging in a warm
exhibition of the noblest enthusiasm for art,—whether
or no Castiglione assisted in its composition,—this document affords another proof how Eaphael's mind embraced everything great and beautiful that art could
give.

We cannot help being especially astonished at

his accurate geometrical knowledge, bespeaking the
thoroughly finished architect.

The use of the compass

and the magnet for measuring buildings redounds
especially to his praise, as Guhl remarks; for he seems
to have been the first who used the

instrument

described by him for such an object.
Once more I must revert to Eaphael's appointment
A

as architect of St. Peter's.

In spite of all his zeal in

the matter, he could not advance far in the work
during his life, as it soon appeared that the four principal pillars, which were* to support the dome, had too

154

RAPHAEL SANTI.

weak a foundation, owing to the hurry to which
Bramante had been urged by Julius IL's impetuosity.
Eaphael, therefore, lost much time at first in increasing the strength of these pillars, and afterwards the
money for the building of the church became more
and more sparingly given, consumed as it was by
Leo X.'s extravagant love of splendour, and his war
against the Duke of Urbino.*

More fortunate was our

artist in the completion of another building, also begun
by Bramante, namely, the court in the Vatican called
San Damaso.

For this, too, he drew a richer and

more beautiful plan, and had a model of it executed in
wood.

Even at the present day this court is univer-

sally admired.

It is open on the one side, and has a

three-sided simple arcade on the ground floor, built of
brick ; the three upper stories being in travertino
marble, with half-projecting pillars, first of the Doric
and then of the Ionic order, a row of detached Corinthian pillars crowning the whole.

Here are the

Loggie, each of which has a small dome, corresponding
with the arch.
Among the other plans designed by Eaphael is that
* See Appendix, note clii.

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGNS.

155

for the chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo at Kome,
which he executed for his friend Agostino Chigi, and
which was not entirely completed until after the artist's
death; also that for the fapade of the church of San
Lorenzo in Florence, which was never executed, and
for which Michael Angelo also prepared a competition
design.

(Eaphael must, therefore, have travelled to

Florence in the winter of 1515-16, expressly at the
Pope's command.)

There is also the plan for the

Palace Coltrolini, near St. Andrea della Valle, now the
Palazzo Yidoni;

the plan for the Casa di Jacopo

Sadoleto, now Casa Berti, at the end of the Borgo
Nuovo, on the right of the square of St. Peter's; it is
built in brick, and has a fapade of five windows.

He

also designed the plan for the villa of the Cardinal
Griulio de' Medici, on the Monte Mario, now Villa
Madama; as well as those for the Palace Pandolfini, in
the street of San Grallo in Florence, and for the Casa
Uguccioni in the same place, both of which were executed during his residence in Florence, in the winter
of 1515-16.

The first-mentioned palace was, however,

not built until after Eaphael's death, when it was consigned to Bastiano Aristotile da San Grallo.*
* See Appendix, note cliii.

Lastly,

156

RAPHAEL SANTI.

there was the palace of Giovanni Battista Branconio
d' Aquila, erected opposite St. Peter's, but afterwards
pulled down on the enlargement of the latter building.
It was decorated with stucco-work by Giovanni da Udine,
and Yasari speaks of it as

s

cosa bellissima.'

Of the

other plans which have been also ascribed to Baphael—
namely, that for the church San Giovanni Battista dei
Fiorentini in Kome; that for the restoration of the
church of Santa Maria e Dominica, also called Delia
Navicella, on the Monte Celio ; and, lastly, that for the
stables of Agostino Chigi, near the Farnesina—we know
as good as nothing.*
In order briefly to characterise the direction which
Eaphael pursued as an architect, we will take Passavant's opinion, and say that he possessed, far more
than his teacher and countryman Bramante, a just feeling for great architectural masses and divisions, and a
taste for beautiful relations and forms, which was quite
peculiar to himself.

To his architectural structures,

to his cornices, windows, and doors, he gave more richness than Bramante did.

He was fond of lintels over

windows, to increase the picturesque effect, and to give

* See Appendix, note cliv.

ARCHITECTURAL STYLE.

157

his architecture a richer stamp, alternately covering
them with pointed and rounded pediments, placing
double pillars, and breaking the socle by projecting
window-ledges.

Nevertheless, his cornices and plinths

always run in an unbroken line, so that they are in
no wise prejudicial to the effect of harmonious repose.
His style of architecture is decidedly purer than that of
Michael Angelo.

Baldassare Peruzzi alone, of all the

architects of the sixteenth century, could dispute precedence with him.*
Undoubtedly we owe to KaphaePs abundance of rich
and noble ornament the revival of the insipid renaissance style, whilst from Michael Angelo's powerful
character an indisputably wilder style proceeded:
those gigantic pilasters and entablatures, those angular
forms, the breaking and intersecting of pediments over
doors and windows, the introduction of scrolls in
curved and twisted ornaments — changes which at
length gradually gave place to the rococo style, to the
school of Bernini and Borromini, ' the deadly enemy,'
as it were, ( of the straight line.' f
But as regards architecture also, the universality of

* See Appendix, note civ.

t See Appendix, note clvi.

158

RAPHAEL SANTT.

Eaphael's genius appears not to have been exhausted to
the utmost in the productions which history assigns to
him; for it is more than probable that he attempted
sculpture also.

We have every reason to suppose that

the magnificent marble statue of the prophet Jonah,
in the chapel of Agostino Chigi, in Santa Maria del
Popolo, was executed by him, while for the statue of
Elias, which Lorenzetto made, he certainly furnished
the design.

Moreover, it appears from a letter of

Count Castiglione's to his attorney, Andrea Piperario,
in Borne, dated May 8, 1523,* that the life-size marble
group of the boy fatally wounded, lying on the back of a
dolphin, who is holding him fast by his long-falling hair,
was executed at all events after Eaphael's own design,
though

with Lorenzetto's assistance.!

There are,

too, many designs of Eaphael's for bowls, medals, and
similar things; and Passavant considers it, moreover,
as certain, that the beautiful Fontana delle Tartarughe
(with the tortoise), in Eome, was executed after a
model of Eaphael's. J
Lastly, Professor Andreas Miiller,§ the keeper of the
*
f
I
§

See Appendix, note clvii.
It is now at Down Hill, in Ireland.
See Appendix, note clviii., note clix., and note clx.
See Appendix, note clxi.

RAPHAEL'S ENGRAVINGS.

159

collection of the Art Academy at Diisseldorf, has attempted, in a small pamphlet, which appeared in 1860,
to prove with reasons which have hitherto remained unrefuted, so far as I know, that Eaphael also understood
the use of the graver and the file, and, therefore, not
merely, according to the traditional supposition, greatly
assisted Marc Anton in many engravings which the latter
executed from his compositions and under his direction, sometimes even correcting the outline; but that
he also must be reckoned among the peintres

graveurs,

that is, those who have engraved for themselves, such
as Diirer, Francia, and many others of his contemporaries.

There is, for instance, in the collection of

the Diisseldorf Academy, an engraving six inches four
lines high, and two inches eight lines broad, according
to Paris measure, representing the Holy Virgin sitting
on clouds, holding with her right hand the Infant
Saviour, who is leaning against her, and surrounded by
four boy angels, who are looking out from the clouds.
The composition, perhaps a first sketch for the ' Madonna di Fuligno,' which it strongly resembles, is certainly full of a peculiar Eaphael-like grace, and the
execution so plainly surpasses that of the well-known
engraving of Marc Anton, which Bartsch (' Peintre

EAPHAEL SANTI.

160

Graveur,' xiv. 47) and Passavant (a. a. 0. ii. 636, No.
19) mention, as well as all the other engravings, which
this artist has made from Eaphael's original drawings,
that Miiller has arrived at the conviction that Eaphael
himself engraved this one sheet, and this (which he
considers very probable) because he was incited to do
so by the engravings which Albert Diirer sent to him
in Eome about the year 1510, and among which was probably the beautiful

6

Holy Family with the Butterfly.'

Eaphael's engraving resembles this in the most remarkable manner, in tone and composition, and even
in the management of the different parts, as, for
example, in the clouds, the heads and hands, in the
representation of the deep red by simple strokes, and
so forth, so that we have reason to believe that Eaphael
wished to test his own capability by this engraving of
Durer's, in producing a similarly picturesque effect by
the application of similar means.
Vasari relates in a passage in the Florentine edition
of 1550* (a passage subsequently omitted, but again inserted in the new Trieste edition), that Eaphael had seen
Diirers engraving as the latter was going to his work,

* See Appendix, note clxii.

ATTEMPTS AT ENGEAVING.

161

and was at once animated by the desire to show what
he also could produce in this art; he had therefore
prepared many studies in it for Marc Antonio Eaimondi of Bologna, at that time the most famous engraver in Italy; and as these had succeeded, he had his
early things, such as the ' Murder of the Innocents,'
the < Last Supper,' and others, printed by him.

From

this certainly not very concise passage, Miiller also
infers that Eaphael at first attempted to engrave his
own works, because the proofs which Marc Antonio
brought with him from Bologna to Eome did not
satisfy him; hence before he entrusted the latter with
his manifold works, he made him prepare some engravings after those of Albert Diirer under his own
direction, so that he might perfect himself in the
technical part of the art of engraving.

No sketch of

Eaphael's, after which Marc Antonio might have engraved his plate, is extant.

Miiller is far more of

opinion that the Marc Antonio engraving, which has
been often copied, must have been prepared direct
from a copy of the same plate, a proof sheet of which
the Diisseldorf Academy possesses from the bequest of
Carlo Maratti (through its subsequent director, Lambert Krahe, who gained a great part of the Maratti
M

RAPHAEL SANTI.

162

collection of sketches).

That Eaphael had, even before

this, given great attention to the art of engraving is
proved by the account of Lodovico Dolce,* according
to which the artist, even before Diirer's engravings
had reached him, had hung up many engravings by
German masters in his atelier, and was wont to extol
them highly.

He had, moreover, the engravings of

Mantegna, which he highly esteemed, and which he
had long known, and had even himself copied them.f
That he did not, however, continue to practise the art
of engraving is easily explained, for it was exactly
from the year 1510 that he was commissioned to
execute such an overwhelming amount of artistic work
of another kind.

We have only desired to show that

in this art also he possessed the capability for excelling.
We will now return to the painter Eaphael, and
omitting the portraits, which we have before enumerated
all together, we will briefly glance at the great masterworks which he created during the few last years of
his life.
The date of the 4 Madonna della Sedia,' the ornament
of the Pitti Palace, is not accurately determined, but

* See Appendix, note chriii.

f IbicL note eBriv.

'LO SPASIMO DI SICILIA.'

1G3

Rumohr places the completion of this painting, which
is especially admired for the beauty of its colouring—
certainly much too early—-in the year 1510.*

Similar

in style is the ' Madonna della Tenda,' which derives its
name from the arrangement of the background—a
curtain with some sky on the right.

Of the many re-

presentations of this subject that are in existence, that
in the Pinakothek at Munich, which was carried away
by the French from Madrid, and wag purchased from
Sir Thomas Baring in 1814, by the then Crown Prince
Louis of Bavaria, is considered as the original of
Eaphael.

Nevertheless, even this copy could not have

been entirely painted by Eaphael's own hand, although
the conception of the whole decidedly belongs to him.
The

c

Bearing the Cross,' a painting nine feet ten

inches high, and seven feet two inches broad, also
called 'Lo Spasimo di Sicilian because the picture was
formerly in the monastery church of Santa Maria dello
Spasimo, though it now forms the ornament of the
Museum at Madrid, must certainly be reckoned among
the best works of our master; and, owing to the
masterly engravings of Paolo Toschi, it is among the
* See Appendix, note clxv.
M 2

164

EAPHAEL SANTI.

most known of his productions.

When we consider all

it has gone through—the vessel, in which it was sent to
Palermo, suffered shipwreck on the coast of Liguria,
and the chest containing the picture was carried by the
waves to Genoa—we can only be astonished at its
general good preservation; but by the transmission
from wood to canvass, which Bonnemaison effected,
and the re-touching that followed this process, the
colours have been injured not a little, as is the case
with all the pictures exposed to this proceeding.
There is also in Madrid the c Visitation,' a painting
seven feet two inches high, and five feet five inches and
ten lines broad, which Eaphael, assisted perhaps by
Giulio Eomano, painted for the chapel of the Papal
chamberlain, Giovanni Battista Branconio,in the church
of San Silvestro, at Aquila, in the Abruzzi.

In this

painting, the head of the aged Elizabeth, the charming expression of modesty and humility in the figure
of Mary, and the exquisitely-executed garments of
both women, are full of effect; only the throat of
Mary appears rather thin.

The landscape in the

background, with the anachronistic representation of
the Baptism of Christ in the river Jordan, has much
breadth in it.

PAINTINGS OF THE 'HOLY FAMILY.'

165

Lastly, in the Madrid Museum, there are two other
treasures of Kaphael's—the 'Holy Family under the
Oak-tree,' which in the Madrid catalogue is called
4

La Sacra Familia del Agnus Dei,' while a very good

copy of it in the Pitti Palace is called, on account
of the lizard which appears in it, i La Sacra Famiglia
della Lacerta;' and the so-called ' Perla,' a very charming composition, which Eaphael designed for the Duke
Federigo di Mantova, though the execution of it in
oils belongs for the most part to a pupil, probably to
Gtiulio Eomano, just as the composition of the abovenamed ' Holy Family' is ascribed to Francesco Penni.
There are very evident traces that Kaphael himself
made many alterations in the ' Perla' before sending
it away.

Philip IV. of Spain bought the picture for

two thousand pounds sterling, from the remains of the
English King Charles L, who was beheaded.
For Francis I. of France, Eaphael

painted

the

' Archangel Michael thrusting Satan down into the
Abyss,' and the large ' Holy Family'—the Virgin with
the Infant

Christ, Elizabeth, the little St. John,

Joseph, and two heavenly messengers, or guardian
angels, scattering flowers as tokens of their adoration.
He also painted ' St. Margaret stepping victoriously

RAPHAEL SANTI.

166

upon the Dragon that is coiling round her' (it is much
effaced and re-touched); and the portrait of the famous
beauty, < Johanna of Arragon,' the wife of Ascanio Colonna, Prince of Tagliacozzo.

From the letters of

Beltrame Costabili, Bishop of Adria, the Ferrarese
ambassador in Eome from 1516 to 1519, edited by
Campore,* we see that originally the Pope had given
Eaphael the commission to paint a St. Michael, and
this with the intention

e

of presenting it to his most

Christian Majesty of France;' and that the large
' Holy Family' also had been ordered by Leo X., not,
however, for Francis L, but for his queen.

They

were, nevertheless, not presented by the Pope himself, but by Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino,
who received the pictures, and transmitted them to
the French court, despatching them from Florence
on June 4, 1518.f

Eaphael worked at the 'Michael'

from March 21, 1517, to May 27,1518. The < Johanna
of Arragon' was sketched in Naples by a pupil of
Eaphael's, probably by Giulio Eomano, by order of
Bernardo Divizio da Bibbiena, who was the Papal
legate in France from 1518 to 1519; the

greater

part of it was executed in oils by Giulio Eomano;
* See Appendix, note clxvi.

f Ibid, note clxvii.

PAINTINGS OF THE HOLY FAMILY.

167

Francis I. probably received the picture as a present
from his legate.

Yasari says that Eaphael only

painted the head, and that all the rest was by Griulio
Eomano.*
Besides the four last-mentioned pictures, the Louvre
Gallery possesses another small 'Holy Family' by
Eaphael, in which the Infant Christ, standing in the
cradle by the side of the Virgin, who is seated, strokes
the face of the little St. John, who is sitting on
Elizabeth's knee.

According to Felibien,f it

was

painted for the Cardinal Adrien Grbffier de Boissi, who
was sent to Paris in 1519 as Papal legate.

There

is no doubt that Griulio Eomano and Francesco Penni
had a large share in its execution.

A second 'St.

Margaret,' stepping forth from the rocky cavern, and
holding in her left hand a small crucifix, with her
eye turned to the dragon, is now in the gallery of
the Belvedere at Vienna, after having been for a long
time in Venice.

The hand of Griulio Eomano is here

also not to be mistaken; he must also have had an
essential share in the design.J
Many other paintings produced at that time, espe* See Appendix, note clxviii.
| Ibid, note clxx.

f Ibid, note clxix.

168

RAPHAEL SANTI.

cially many Holy Families, can have gone forth from
Eaphael's atelier alone, although doubtless the master
himself had a share in some manner in the conception
of all these pictures.

Among them we may enumerate

the ' Madonna with the Candelabra,' formerly in Lucca,
^,nd now in London, in Mr. Munro's collection; the
' Sacra Familia llamada de la Bosa,' now in Madrid,
in which the Infant Christ and St. John are holding
a parchment scroll with the inscription

6

Ecce Agnus

D e i ; ' the ' Holy Virgin among the Hums,' now in
the sacristy of the Escurial; the * Madonna del Passeggio,' in London (in the possession of Lord Ellesmere); the 'Holy Virgin in the Meadow, with the
Infant Christ and St. John,' in the gallery of the
Hermitage at St. Petersburg; and others.
The last Madonna which Eaphael painted is also
l i s noblest: it is that of San Sisto, in which she is
represented with St. Sixtus and St. Barbara.

The

picture is nine feet three inches high, and seven feet
broad, and was, according to Eumohr's supposition,*
originally painted on canvass for the monks of the
Monastery Church of St. Sixtus, in Piacenza, as a

* See Appendix, note clxxi.

MADONNA DI SAN SISTO.

drapellone—that

is, a procession standard

169

carried

between two poles; at all events, however, as Vasari
testifies,* it was early placed as a chief altar-piece in
the church itself, and in the year 1753 it was purchased for the Dresden Gallery by the Elector Augustus I I I . of Saxony, for 40,000 scudi romani, with
an old copy by the Venetian Nogari.f
The state of the picture is satisfactory, although it
has suffered various injuries from accidents, dryness*
and the cleaning process of the Eoman restorer Palmaroli, in the year 1827.

How far it justifies the public

opinion that it is the work in which Eaphael's genius
is most directly exhibited, has never been called in
question, except by Count Lepel, who, in his summary
of the paintings of Eaphael, does not even wish to
recognise it as a Eaphael picture, and blames its
composition and colouring.^

He has been most con-

vincingly answered by Herr von Quandt.§

Among

the various fates which this work of art has experienced, it is especially worthy of remark that Napoleon
never carried it away to Paris.
A feeling of spirituality is breathed forth from this
* See Appendix, note clxxii.
} Ibid, note elxxiv.

f Ibid, note clxxiii.
§ Ibid, note elxxv.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

170

picture, a sublimity touching the marvellous, which no
other work by our master has attained to an equal
extent.

It appears the more extraordinary, because a

clearer and more simple example of symmetrical and
pyramidal arrangement can scarcely be shown in the
whole history of the art.*

The composition is distin-

guished by the greatest eurythmy, although the old
architectural rule of symmetry prevails to the utmost,
and the pyramidal form belonging to the representation of transcendental subjects is employed in the
highest simplicity.

But not only do pyramidal form

and symmetry combine here to produce the utmost
artistic freedom, but we see the sectio aurea also—a
term which the ancients used to denote that just proportion of division by which a given whole (A) is SO
divided into two parts, that the greater part (B) is the
mean proportion between the whole and the lesser
part ( A — B ) , or that the whole bears the same proportion to the greater part as this does to the lesser.
Although mathematical divisions and figures cannot be
called beautiful, and the geometrical arrangement of a
picture is opposed to its freedom and picturesque con* See Appendix, note clxxvi.

MADONNA DI SAN SISTO.

171

ception—although, moreover, there is no doubt that
Eaphael did not create the e Sistine Madonna' according to any dry mathematical plan, previously devised,
but in obedience to the inspiration of his own artistic
feeling—yet the undeniable fact holds good that in
this work there is a wonderful union of geometrical
plan with genuine artistic freedom, that the mathematical proportions in it appear resolved into the most
perfect harmony, thus affording a new proof that
artistic gifts are truly an unconscious science, and that
great genius really contains within itself the laws of
its art, and exercises them unconsciously.

The high

importance of symmetry and pyramidal arrangement
was well known to our master, and had been for many
centuries a matter of artistic teaching.

Many of

Eaphael's paintings prove that he made use of it with
full theoretic knowledge, carrying, as he did, the larger
pyramidal group into smaller and smaller ones, until
at last even the separate figures partook of the same
outline.

Still, as regards the sectio aurea, the know-

ledge of this just proportion of division, in its application to works of art, may have been foreign to him,
although in all classical buildings the proportions of
the sectio aurea essentially determine the arrangement;

172

RAPHAEL SANTI.

and, from mere imitation of nature, it exists also in
figures executed by the sculptor or painter, just as in the
human form the principal parts bear this proportion to
each other.

Notwithstanding this possible ignorance,

however, his genius must have felt the infinite harmony of the proportions thus produced; for in him, as
in every great artist, we see revealed somewhat of that
creative spirit of nature whose proportions submit to
the same laws as those which regulate a work of art.*
We will now proceed to point out some details in the
6

Sistine Madonna,' without in any wise intending to

offer a complete resume of its beauties.

The principal

thing deserving notice seems to be the powerful effect
which our master has thrown into the expression of the
eyes.

Vischer thus expresses himself on this point: f

' In the " Sistine Madonna," the dark greenish rings of
shadow round the eye, and the indescribable treatment
of this part, though effected by the simplest means,
give a sweet, wonderful, heavenly delicacy to the countenances, which yet breathe forth an existence humanly healthy; hovering down from the realms of
heaven to the saints who are imploring protection for

See Appendix, note clxxvii.

f Ibid, note clxxviii.

MADONNA 1)1 SAN SISTO.

173

their church on earth, they seem as if they were
saying: No earthly name can designate, no lip can
utter, the glorious things we see; our earthly part is
consumed, and yet it lives and moves in the wonders
of glory.'
Heinrich Ernst Heucking,* the latest interpreter of
this famous work, amid many abstruse and unnecessary
discussions, has with some elegance drawn attention to
the fact that the treatment of the Infant Christ in this
picture—with his reserved and satisfied air of independence, with that expression of contemplation which seems
like a glance into the future, with his hair fluttering
and carried about more by emotions within than by
any current of air without, with his bold protruding
eye, impatiently distended nostrils, and the almost
angrily compressed lips—is just as peculiar, and just
as diverse from all other representations of the same
subject, as is that of the Virgin, in whom we see, not
so much the Queen of Heaven, but the loving afflicted
mother, whose sublime expression of melancholy is
intended to express how deeply she feels that the
possession of the supernatural must bring with it

See Appendix, note clxxix.

174

RAPHAEL SANTI.

unwonted pain, and that martyrdom is the heritage of the
great upon earth.

Heucking also justly points out the

meditative and truth-reflecting glance into the infinite,
which wonderfully distinguishes the two careless and
innocent boy-angels on the lower edge of the picture
from all similar representations by the master.
Carriere* certainly does not

Moritz

err when, criticising

Heucking's work, he asserts that, of all Eaphael's
representations of the Infant Saviour, that in the
6

Sistine Madonna' alone portrays the totality of his

character and life, the secret of the ideal; that the
complete picture of the Man Christ has never been so
perfectly executed as in this child—neither by Michael
Angelo, who portrayed alone the might of the worldjudging Christ without His beneficent tenderness, nor
by Titian, nor by Leonardo da Vinci, who, in their pictures of Christ, merely depicted something humanly
noble, purity of mind, and loving self-sacrifice, but
never to an equal extent represented Him that overcometh the world; nor by Diirer, who, in the title of
the ' Great Passion,' exhibits the suffering Eedeemer in
His agony of soul at the continued sins of mankind;

See Appendix, note clxxx.

MADONNA DI SAN SISTO.

175

nor, lastly, by Eaphael himself, whose ' Transfiguration'
portrays alone the glorified Christ, though this, too, is
executed with the greatest excellence.

That a second

Virgin like the Sistine has ever again been painted, it
would be also difficult to dispute; analogies alone
with the figures of St. Barbara and Pope Sixtus are to
be found in other works by the master.
There is one point more to which I must draw
attention, and which, in my personal contemplation of
the picture, has always appeared to me especially
striking, and that is the touching and genuinely human
family resemblance seen in the countenance of the
Virgin and her Child, which does not, however, in the
least affect the utter difference in the spiritual expression of both heads.

The face of the mother breathes

forth the deepest humblest modesty; that of the child,
on the other hand, nothing but energy and animation.
The principal reason why this painting stands so
extraordinarily above all the other pictures of this
period bearing Eaphael's name, refuting so strikingly,
as it does, the ridiculous assertion that Eaphael retrograded latterly in his art, seems to me to lie in the
fact that it was decidedly painted entirely by Eaphael
himself, without the assistance of his pupils, and this

17G

RAPHAEL SANTI.

only rarely occurred in the latter years of his life,
owing to the multiplicity of his employments.

When

Palmaroli cleaned the picture, and unsparingly used the
knife, some of the colour peeling off, a drawing of the
outline in red chalk was distinctly visible; and Eumohr
justly supposes that there never was any other sketch
but this.

In such a case, the ' Sistine Madonna' would

be a completely original production of Eaphael's
genius, in the same manner as the overture to c Don
J u a n ' is that of Mozart's; for of it, also, not the
slightest sketch exists, and the master scarcely effaced
a note in first writing it down.

Neither the ' St. John

the Baptist' as a youth, with a panther-skin on his
arm and thighs, sitting by a fountain in the desert—
a picture painted for the Cardinal Colonna, and now
in the Uffizi at Florence—neither this painting nor
Eaphael's last work, which was only completed after
his death, the ' Transfiguration

or Grlorification

of

Christ,' are equal to the ' Sistine Madonna' as regards
execution; for they were certainly not entirely finished
by the master's own hand.

The

e

Transfiguration of

Christ' (a picture twelve feet six inches high, and eight
feet eight inches wide) was painted by order of the
Cardinal Griulio de' Medici as an altar-piece for his

' T H E TRANSFIGURATION.'

bishopric of Narbonne.

177

In the year 1522 it was

placed as an altar-piece in the church of San Pietro
in Montorio; in 1797 it was carried to Paris; and
since the year 1815, it has been in the Vatican picture
gallery.

In

this picture, we can only recognise

Kaphael's brush with certainty in the figure of our
Saviour, in the demoniac boy, in the anxious father
imploring the assistance of Christ, in the splendid
female figure kneeling in the foreground, pointing to
the boy, and in the Apostle Andrew, who is sitting to
the left.

Griulio Komano executed many of the heads

of the Apostles, and the lower groups, in a somewhat
coarse style; and he also evidently had no unessential
share in the figure of St. John the Baptist.

Grothe

has, however, in his ' Italienisehe Eeise,' for ever
thoroughly refuted the blame so often heard respecting
the double subject of the (Transfiguration,'

and the

lack of connection between the lower and upper portions of the painting.

c

It is marvellous,' he writes,*

'that any one should ever have ventured to criticise
the great unity of such a conception.

In the Saviour's

absence, some unhappy parents bring a demoniac boy

* See Appendix, note clxxxi.
N

178

RAPHAEL SANTI.

to the disciples of the Lord: they may already have
attempted to cast out the evil spirit; a book even has
been opened, to enquire if any traditional form can be
found effective against the evil possession; but in vain.
At this moment the only Mighty One appears, and
this in a glorified state, acknowledged by his great
Father.

At once they point to such a vision as to

the one source of safety.
rate the two parts ?

How can one desire to sepa-

Both are one: below, the suf-

fering, the needy; above, the Able, the Helper: both
related to each other, both linked together.

And, to

express our meaning in another manner, can an ideal
reference to the actual interfere with this ?

Eaphael

was even distinguished for the correctness of his mode
of thinking; and shall the Grod-inspired man, whom
we throughout recognise as such, have thought, have
acted falsely, in the very prime of his life?

Nay;

like Nature, he is at all times right and j u s t ; there
most profoundly so, where we least understand her.'
While alluding to Gothe's efforts to promote an
understanding of Kaphael's works, I will not omit to
mention the detailed description of his designs of
6

Christ and the Twelve Apostles,' which were engraved

by Marc Anton, and were copied by Langer in Diis-

'CHRIST AND THE TWELVE APOSTLES.'

seldorf in 1789.

179

These designs were painted life-size

in succession, on the pillars of the nave of the little
church of San Vincenzo ed Anastasio, built in the
seventh century, and standing before the Porta San
Paolo in Kome, not far from San Paolo fuori le mura;
they have now almost entirely disappeared.

'The

c

task,' says Gothe,* of properly representing a glorified
Teacher and his twelve first and chiefest disciples,
men who hung entirely on his words and life, and for
the most part crowned their simple walk with a
martyr's death, has been performed by Eaphael with
such a complete understanding of art, that we may
consider these sheets as the finest monuments of his
successful career.'

In the ' Italienische Eeise' also,

we find some more beautiful remarks upon this work
of Kaphael's.f

' This extraordinary mind,' he here

c

says, which had before represented these pious men in
an assembled band all harmonising in their dress, has
pourtrayed them here, where each appears separately,
each with his especial and distinctive mark, not as
though he were in his Master's train, but as if, after that
Master's ascension, he had now to work and endure to
* See Appendix, note clxxxii.

f See Appendix, note clxxxiii.
N 2

180

RAPHAEL SANTI.

the end according to his character.'

In the manage-

ment of the drapery especially, an extraordinary art is
displayed, and this is pointed out in greater detail in
the criticism of Grothe's which we first mentioned.
I must refrain from entering further upon the endlessly manifold designs of Eaphael; Passavant has
enumerated them most completely.

I will only in

conclusion refer to one oil-painting, which the master
probably left behind him in a most unfinished state.
It is c The Coronation of the Virgin,' which he promised
as an altar-piece to the nuns of Monte Luce at Perugia
as early as 1505, a promise he again repeated in 1516.
The painting was not completed till 1525, when it was
executed by Griulio Komano in conjunction with Giovanni Francesco Penni and Berto di Giovanni; the
first painted the upper part, where Christ is crowning the Holy Virgin; the second painted the lower
part, with the Apostles at Mary's sepulchre; and the
third painted the predella, with four representations
from the life of the Virgin.

This predella has been

preserved in the sacristy of the monastery of Monte
Luce to the present day.

The altar-piece itself was

carried in 1797 to the Musee Napoleon, and in 1815
was conveyed to the Vatican.

LAST ILLNESS*

181

It now only remains for us to say a few words on
the close of Eaphael's career.

Whether, as Vasari

t h i n k s / he met with the early death which we deplore,
in consequence of sensual excesses and the misapplied
remedy of bleeding, or whether, as others assert, he
was carried off by a violent feverish cold, which he
caught while engaged in his excavations and surveyings in the old city,f seems to me a question scarcely
worth the trouble which Longhena and Pungileoni
have expended on its solution.

That he loved women

is an established fact, even if Vasari in his biography
may have attended too much to the gossiping stories
of contemporaries, when he says: 4 F u Kaffaello persona molto amorosa ed affezionata alle donne, e di
continuo presto ai servigi loro.' J

If, however, it can

be proved, that according to the general custom of his
time and country, he indulged in amours, and perhaps
a long and intimate intercourse with one beautiful
woman especially, even this does not establish the
fact that mere common sensuality was the cause of
his death; indeed this can scarcely be supposed when
we consider the ideal tendency of his nature, and his
* See Appendix, note clxxxiv.
\ See Appendix, note clxxxyi.

f See Appendix, note elxxxv.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

182

truly enormous artistic activity up to the very last
moment.

That his frame of body was delicate is a

settled fact; we cannot therefore be surprised that
the incessant mental exertions, to which the unwearied artist exposed this tender frame, must have
shattered it in the first violent attack of illness.
Moreover, the before-mentioned Modenese records, the
latest documents relating to his life, confirm the fact
that a severe attack of fever carried him off after an illness of eight days.* Pauluzzo, the Eoman agent of Duke
Alfonso of Ferrara, to whom Eaphael had promised
a picture, a promise of which he was in vain reminded
to the day of his death, expressly informs his master of
this circumstance.

The artist died at the age of thirty-

seven, on the anniversary of the day of his birth, Good
Friday, April 6, 1520, between nine and ten o'clock in
the evening.

He had, however, had time to make his

will, appointing as its executors Baldassare Turini da
Pescia, secretary to the papal datary, and the papal
chamberlain, Giovanni Battista Branconio of Aquila.
He had himself chosen the place of his interment in
the Pantheon of Agrippa, which was consecrated by
Pope Boniface IV. as the church of Santa Maria ad
* See Appendix, note clxxxvii.

RAPHAEL'S WILL.

183

Martyres, or della Eotonda, and he had arranged that
over his sepulchre a marble statue of the Virgin should
be erected, the execution of which he had consigned to
Lorenzo Lotti (Lorenzetto).

Griulio Pippi (Eomano)

and Francesco Penni inherited all he possessed in
treasures of art, even his still unfinished works; he
provided handsomely for the so-called Fornarina. Bibbiena received, as we have before seen, his house in
Eome; his relatives in Urbino were the principal
inheritors of the rest of his property, with the exception of that on his father's side, which Giovanni Santi
had bequeathed to the fraternity of Santa Maria della
Misericordia.

Besides this, he allotted one thousand

scudi for the purchase of a house, from the revenue of
which twelve masses for his soul were to be celebrated
monthly on the altar of the burial chapel he had
founded; these, however, have been discontinued since
the year 1705, because the house 'V Imagine,' in the
Via de' Coronari, brings in now but a rent of a few scudi.
The sorrow for Eaphael's death was universal.

The

people of Eome poured forth in crowds to the house of
death, where the corpse of the great master was laid
out on a catafalco, surrounded with wax torches;
behind it stood the painting of the ' Transfiguration.'

184

RAPHAEL SAXTI.

Grand was the ceremony of his interment; every artist
followed; no eye was tearless, as Vasari says : ( Non fu
nessuno artefice ehe dolendosi non piagnesse, ed insieme
alia sepoltura non 1' accompagnasse.' *

Bembo wrote a

Latin epitaph, which may be translated as follows :—
DEDICATED TO
R A P H A E L SANTI, T H E SON OF J O H N OF U R B I N O ,
T H E GREAT P A I N T E R W H O EMULATED T H E ANCIENTS,
I N W H O S E L I V I N G WORKS
T H E LINE: B E T W E E N N A T U R E AND ART
I S EASILY P E R C E I V E D .
P A I N T E R AND ARCHITECT, H E INCREASED T H E FAME OF P O P E J U L I U S
T H E SECOND A*ND LEO T H E

TENTH.

H E L I V E D EXACTLY T H I R T Y - S E V E N

YEARS,

AND D I E D ON T H E A N N I V E R S A R Y OF H I S

BIRTH,

ON APRIL 7, 1520.
T H I S I S T H A T R A P H A E L , BY W H O M N A T U R E F E A R E D TO B E
CONQUERED W H I L E H E L I V E D , AND TO D I E W H E N

HE

DIED.

D. 0 . M .
R A P H A E L SANCTIO J O H A N . F . V R B I N A T I
P I C T O R I E M I N E N T I S S . VETERVMQ. AEMVLO,
CVIVS S P I R A N T E I S P R O P E

IMAGINEIS

S I CONTEMPLERE,
NATURAE ATQVE A R T I S FOEDVS
FACILE I N S P E X E R I S .
J U L I I I I . E T L E O N I S X . PONT. MAX.
PICTVRAE E T ARCHITECT. O P E R I B U S
GLORIAM A U X I T .
VIXIT AN. XXXVU.

I N T E G E R INTEGROS-

QUO D I E N A T I S EST EO ESSE D E S I I T ,
V I I . I D . A P R I L . MDXX.
I I L L E H I C EST R A P H A E L , T I M U I T QUO S0SP1TE V I N C I
R E R U M MAGNA P A R E N S E T M O R I E N T E M O R I .

* See Appendix, note cLxxxyiii.

SORROW AT HIS DEATH.

185

The authentic information we possess respecting
Eaphael's death, is from a letter addressed to Antonio
di Marsilio, in Venice, five days after the sad event,
on April 11, 1520, from the nobleman Marc Antonio
Michiel de Ser Vittor, then living in Eome.

It was

first published in the ' Notizia d' Opere di Disegno da
un Anonimo, etc., da Jacopo Morelli' (Bassano, 1800),
page 210, note 128.* In this paper, the whole of the
great master's bequest was estimated at 16,000 ducats,
which was certainly no small sum at that period.

It is

also here narrated that the death of Eaphael was
announced to the Pope by the threatened fall of that
part of the Vatican palace which had been built by
the artist, and in which Leo X. now lived, so that the
prince of the Church was obliged to remove to other
apartments (those of the Monsignore Cibo).

A great

number of poets wrote verses on his death, and Ariosto
composed a Latin distich.

Among the most touching

words written on his mournful decease, are the few
lines which Count Castiglione addressed to his mother
from Eome on July 20, 1520: <Io sono sano, ma non
pare essere in Eoma, perche non vi e piu il mio pove-

* See Appendix, note clxxxix.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

186

retto Kaffaello.
detta!'

Che Dio abbia quell' anima bene-

(I am well, but it seems no longer as if I

were in Eome, for my poor Eaphael is no longer here.
May Grod have taken him to Himself!)

Upon the

disinterment, suggested by the sculptor Fabris, on
September 14, 183,V^Raphael's body was found in a
state of tolerable preservation, exactly in the place
specified by Vasari,* that is, in a brick vault under
the chief altar to the left of the entrance.

The

skeleton measured five feet two inches, according to
Parisian measure.
* See Appendix, note cxc.

187

, CHAPTER VI.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.

I

SHOULD

here have brought my sketch of Eaphael's

life to a close, if I had not felt impelled in conclusion
to enter more particularly upon one, point, which has
indeed been often mentioned in the course of my narrative, but which seems to me so exceedingly important
in arriving at an understanding of the great man, that
I cannot forbear stating once more with greater detail
and connection all that perhaps can be said on the
subject.

I allude, namely, to the peculiar blending of

pagan classic lore and Christian romanticism, which
was perfected in Eaphael's art.
All forms of art, the plastic, painting, poetry, and
music, have their distinct epochs, in which they become
the centre of man's progressive existence; they then
attain their culminating point, and, so to speak, having
finished their career, they make room for other forms
of art; they depend on certain configurations of mental

188

RAPHAEL SANTI.

and civilised life, the adequate expression of which is
given in this very art.

In the beginning of the

sixteenth century, painting thus played its over-ruling
part.

Eaphael raised it to its height, for all preceding

artistic efforts converge, to a certain extent, in this
master.

After him, however, in spite of many very

important successors, its decline commenced—an evident proof that the centre of the mental life then
dawning, no longer lay in this art.
How was it, however, that just in the first half of the
sixteenth century, painting should have occupied such
a central position, and have displayed its highest perfection in Eaphael ?
There were essentially two great mental influences
which exerted a power over art previous to Eaphael's
time ;—that of Christianity, which perceives the essence
of beauty to lie in the soul and in divine love, hence
' i n the light of inspiration;'* and that proceeding
from the study of antique, where beauty is based on
the genius of nature, the essence of all antique art
lying ' in the spirit of the living form, or in the idea of
the form.'f

These two influences, which have been

* See Appendix, note cxci.

t See Appendix, note cxcii.

CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN INFLUENCES UNITED.

189

long completely sundered, so entirely indeed, that it
appears as if the former had utterly overcome the
latter, had at the end of the middle ages obtained a
kind of equal authority, through the renaissance of
antiquity in literature and art.

The mutual preva-

lence, after which the two influences aspired, first displayed itself in the sphere of painting, for the number
of universal geniuses which in this art struggled to
free themselves from the one-sidedness of the culture
of the middle ages, produced a style, which exhibited
indeed a relative union of the Christian and the Pagan,
of the romantic and the classic influences.
I t is true this union was at first only relative, for, as
Vischer says,* ' there still remained a more difficult
blending to accomplish, that, namely, in which the
picturesque style, with all its definiteness, was to pass
into this great school of form.

Penetrated by the

antique, the plastic style of painting adopted at the
same time as much of the picturesque as was possible.
Thus the influence of the antique was reversed in
another manner; just as it had carried into the pure
form of the beautiful, the true and delicate measure of

* See Appendix, note cxciii.

190

RAPHAEL SANTI.

fidelity to nature and individual characteristics, hence
standing forth as an everlasting model, as an everlasting
example and source of reference; so this high style
of Italian painting displayed the absolute extent to
which the plastic style of painting can admit of the
genuine picturesque.

What ancient art is for all

times, this style, which dates its commencement from
the sixteenth century, is to the future yet to b e ;
another style, the specifically picturesque, always in
danger of losing its proportion, its nobility, and its
firm support, has ever to look up to this pure and
everlasting model; and the spot where its pure godlike
world is enthroned, is Athens, whither every painter
should make his pilgrimage.'
Certain it is, it was a grand moment when this
mutual inter-penetration and, to a certain extent,
separation of the two elements, was accomplished—of
the antique pagan, with its sensual epicurean tendencies, and the Christian and mediaeval, with its character of transcendental
when disunited, lead to

ideality—elements
dangerous

which,

one-sidedness.

Both needed a deeper purification and renewal, if
intellectual life were not to fall for ever into two
irreconcilable extremes.

But, when this inter-penetra-

ANTIQUE AND CHRISTIAN ART.

191

tion had once prevailed at least in one sphere of art,
it was no wonder that this art immediately occupied
a central position in civilised life, holding a prominent
position in the age as well as in the nation, from
which the great art of union proceeded.

A truly

humanistic view of things must have been the result of
this event, and an art must have sprung forth from it,
which we may likewise call humanistic, inasmuch as
it harmoniously united the ideal demands of Christianity with the realistic requirements of the antique.
We must not, however, picture the extraordinary event
as though it had suddenly, as it were, fallen from
heaven; on the contrary, it required long preparatory
struggles in every sphere of activity open to the mind
of man, before such a fruit could come to maturity.
To understand this, we must once more examine the
cleft that separates the two extremes.
The art of the Christian middle ages found

its

highest motive in that Christian dogma, according to
which each individual has attained his destiny only
when he quits the life of sense for that life to come,
which is the contrast to the world of sense and time.
The ideal is by this means removed from the artistic
representation, for all forms of sense (and others we

]92

RAPHAEL SANTI.

have not), appear insufficient and inadequate for its
representation.

Such representations can, moreover,

never in themselves possess their object; they cannot
bring men into harmony with themselves, they can
only be conceived as intimations of the nothingness
of the world, 'which is to be overcome.

With such

a condition, how can we imagine the exercise of art
possible, especially as regards painting ? It has even
been asserted that a Christian art was in truth impossible ; for when the ideality of Christianity is represented, the form that presents itself to the senses is
ever proved to be the right and suitable one, and the
transcendental ideality thus becomes a false fiction.
A similar turn of thought, if not quite so absolutely
strict, befel in the middle of the fifteenth century the
antique pagan school, arising from the revival of the
study of antiquity, and this called forth not merely a
realistic, but a material and sensual view of life. Since
then the art productions gravitate, as regards form
and matter, towards one of the two extreme styles;
and equally so are these stamped in the most significant forms and in the most marvellous interminglings
on society in general.

Thus, for example, we see the

wearers of the tiara, the representatives of the crucified

THE POWER OF THE PAPACY.

on earth, influenced by the most

193

sensual

aims;

morally and politically those extreme tendencies intersect each other in them.

The means which the

Papacy employed to assert its authority, are not those
of the faith which is to overcome the world, but of the
power which the constitutional structure of the States
of the Church achieves.

Yet in spite of this, there

can be no dispute as to the grandeur of the political
conception with which a Julius II. worked, essentially
laying the foundation of the modern position of the
Papacy.

The hierarchical system thus obtained its

sensible consummation; but with this outward political power, with this sensible representation of itself,
its mediaeval idea ceased any longer to exist.

Or can

we reasonably regard it as anything else than a
termination of the Christian-mediaeval

idea, when

Julius II. marched through the breach into the conquered cities, and enforced with cannons the spiritual
principles which he advocated ?
The Papacy lost its central position at this moment;
henceforth it was for all men nothing but a temporal
power, ruling no longer by the mind, but by the
sword.

There was indeed a time, and this lasting for

many centuries, when this supremacy
o

by mind was a

RAPHAEL SASTTI.

194

fact

conceded

even

by

the fanatical Protestants.

Macaulay describes this epoch and the conditions of
that supremacy with great distinctness in the first
volume of his ' History of England': ' The childhood
of the European nations,' says the great historian,
'was passed under the tutelage of the clergy.

The

ascendancy of the sacerdotal order was long the
ascendancy which naturally and properly belongs to
intellectual superiority.

The priests, with all their

faults, were by far the wisest portion of society.

It

was, therefore, on the whole, good that they should
be respected and obeyed.

The encroachments of the

ecclesiastical power on the province of the civil power
produced much more happiness than misery, while the
ecclesiastical power was in the hands of the only class
that had studied history, philosophy, and public law,
and while the civil power was in the hands of savage
chiefs, who could not read their own grants and edicts.
4

But a change took place.

spread among laymen.

Knowledge gradually

At the commencement of the

sixteenth century, many of them were, in every intellectual attainment, fully equal to the most enlightened of their spiritual pastors.

Thenceforward, that

dominion which, during the dark ages, had been, in

PROGRESS IN ART.

195

spite of abuses, a legitimate and salutary guardianship,
became an unjust and noxious tyranny.' * Little as this
historical conception of the political-ecclesiastical process can be generally regarded as just, yet so much
may be conceded from any point of view, that the
Reformation would never have been able to carry out
her principle of the free spontaneity of man, and to
maintain it to the present day, if the time had not
been ripe for it.
Wholly analogous with this political development
was the progress of the life of art.

All that the middle

ages have afforded of artistic treasure, we owe to the
Church.

But when the mental horizon of men widened,

had art still remained in the exclusive service of the
Church, it would have been stiffened into a onesidedness which must have led to its decline, even
before the period of its perfection had been reached.
With purifying

and improving influence, the re-

awakened genius of the antique now stept forth to
rescue art from the fetters of mediaeval opinions,
and thus it gradually attained to that free universality and liberty of mind, which, ' with noble sensual

* See Appendix, note cxciv.
o 2

RAPHAEL SANTI.

196

delight and imbued with the feeling of heroic human
greatness, no longer disdained to admit the graceful
and natural type of the antique,' in conjunction with
the immaterial, chaste, and supernatural Madonna,
and at last produced that perfect ideal of Italian
painting, in contemplating which, even we, children
of an age ' which, according to Vischer, can no longer
accept the transcendental and mythical conception of
things,' of an age which has indeed scarcely nothing
more left of the middle ages, and of the ancient world,
than its artistic and literary reminiscences—even we
are able to forget the subject in its free aesthetic treatment.

'We

can even freely admire the pure eccle-

siastical works of the great masters, without having
anything in common with them or their time, as
regards historical belief in the subjects; these have
become nothing but the artistic motive.

Eaphael's

Madonnas are types of everlastingly beautiful pure
womanhood, chaste maternity, maternal love, and all
love; Michael Angelo's " Last Judgment" is the type
of eternal justice; we can completely separate from
them any question as to the existence of the subjects,
as to the possibility of the facts.' *
* See Appendix, note cxev.

UNION OF THE TWO STYLES.

197

How was it then that it was none other than
Raphael who brought about this blending of the two
styles into the most perfect imaginable harmony, and
conveyed ' the golden contents of the Christian spirit
into the silver vessel of antiquity ?' * To such a question
Grruyer's work, 'Raphael et l'Antiquite,' which has
just appeared, affords us the most complete answer.
The union of the Christian spirit with the antique
form,—observable even in the frescoes of the Roman
catacombs in the beginning of the Christian era, in
which Christ sometimes bears the features of Apollo,
and sometimes those of Orpheus, a union for centuries
sought after with eagerness, the barbarian iconoclastic
middle ages not excluded, especially however from the
commencement of the Renaissance school,—this union
was never attained until Raphael came, for ably as all
had struggled for it, some had ventured too much and
others not enough.

Leonardo da Vinci never reached

the goal from his too great sabtilty of style; Michael
Angelo never reached it, from his excessive knowledge
and adherence to nature; Correggio and Titian failed,
because they indulged in a misuse of colour and

* See Appendix, note cxcvi.

198

sensual effect.

EAPHAEL SANTI.

Each of these great masters deviated

in his own manner from the antique, however much
he sought for it, because with each and all the strict
measure and just feeling of the beautiful was wanting.
Eaphael alone—though perhaps in some points not
attaining to the height of the others, though perhaps
less rich in knowledge than the two first, and less
great in colouring than the two last—Eaphael alone
understood how to unite the most opposite qualities;
he had a more healthy judgment upon the conditions
of his art than all the others, he possessed the most
accurate knowledge of arrangement and harmony, and
he loved truth above all, without ever considering her
artistically worthy of representation apart from grace
and beauty.

His heart was Christian, but at the same

time his taste was not inferior to that of the master
of the Periclean age.

In his numberless designs, espe-

cially, he displays his peculiar gift for interpreting
nature in the manner of the antique.

All his works,

his earlier ones not excluded, which were created with
any exact knowledge of the antique, seem inspired by
its spirit, although the master, ever creative and independent, followed his own personal feeling alone; this
feeling pre-existed in him, it was not the antique that

CAUSES OF KAPHAEL'S GKEATNESS.

199

called it first into being; nay, it did not even modify
i t ; it only confirmed it and matured it.
Thus it was, that he alone, whilst all the renaissance
round him drew its life from paganism or perished
through it, according to its reasonable use or abuse;
thus it was that he alone, without for a moment
ceasing to be a Christian, was able to re-create, as it
were, the immortal works of antiquity.*

Not that he

copied them, but that, just as Schinkel, three centuries
later, achieved in architecture, he did anew what the
ancients had done; that is, he sought for the ideal
amid the fetters of reality, and found the beautiful
without deviating in consequence from the truth.

The

detractors from his fame may lament as much as they
will that he lost his orthodoxy in Eome while contemplating the antique.

In all the reminiscences of

Anacreon, Theocritus, and Sappho, which meet us in
his mythological creations, we can always perceive the
prevailing voice of the Christian muse—that infinite
ardour, that tenderness of love, that knows no limit,
that spiritual element, which the antique never possesses, but which Kaphael never renounces.

* See Appendix, note cxcvii.

The

EAPHAEL SANTI.

200

excesses of paganism have never defiled his brush; he
never takes pleasure in the impure.

The story of

Psyche was to him not merely a subject for delighting
in sensuality; he breathed even into it the spirit of
that genuine art which may be one's proper object,
because in it lie the impulses to all divine and great
things of which human nature is capable.

How un-

true, moreover, is the reproach that Eaphael retrograded after having come in contact with the antique,
and that in the < Disputa' he reached the height of his
art!

How can we forget that it was after this that he

painted the most religious of his pictures—the ' Madonna di Fuligno,' the 'Madonna della Sedia,' the
' Madonna di San Sisto,' the ' Spasimo,' the ' Transfiguration?'

In art the ideal is orthodoxy, and, from

this point of view, Eaphael was the most orthodox of
painters to the very end of his life.

To compare him

with Apelles, who indeed blended too thoroughly the
realism of the school of Sicyon with the soft and
voluptuous Ionic style, is unjust.

Apelles painted the

gfods but little, and avoided grand subjects; Eaphael's
art, however, embraced all the most important manifestations of religion, poetry, history, and philosophy,
and spreads over all points of this boundless sphere

HAKMONY BETWEEN THE EEAL AND THE IDEAL. 201

the soft, steady, and invigorating fire of a beneficent
genius.

Could we build a palace, in which the works

of Phidias and Eaphael should both find a place, we
should perceive that they are the only equal representatives of their ages—that is, of ancient and modern
times.*
In the unity produced by Eaphael's Greek eye
and Christian feeling lies the highest point of the
artistic progress of all subsequent times—the bond between supernatural and natural beauty—the equalisation of mind and matter—the ripened fruit of a past,
which has cast it aside, and thus at the same time
an eternally true and enduring symbol of a later
age, which seeks through other means—through reflection, through liberty of belief and independence of
mind—to obtain in actual reality an equal harmony
between the ideal and the real.

It is Eaphael's merit

to have first fully achieved this great work in the
sphere of art.

By means of that harmonious disposi-

tion of nature which, at the commencement of these
considerations, turned our attention to Mozart, and
which might with equal right have reminded us of

See Appendix, note cxcviii.

202

RAPHAEL SANTO.

Grothe also, he embraced with equal devotion the two
great fundamental divisions or influences in the history
of art and civilisation, and blended objectively in his
works those opposite tendencies which were subjectively so closely united in his own character; and so
complete is this blending, that, although these works
belong sometimes to the antique and sometimes to the
Christian element, all differences appear entirely extinguished, and from it there arises a burst of human
feeling—the dominant, as it were, of the glorious keynote.

But in this Eaphael proves himself to have

advanced as far beyond the specific-mediaeval as the
antique world.

I t was this universality of Raphael's

genius which Grothe had in view, when he said of
him: * c He never Grrecises, but he feels, thinks, and
acts entirely as a Grreek; so that we see here the finest
talent developed as favourably as it would have been
under similar conditions and circumstances in the age
of Pericles.' And this is justly followed up by Wilhelm
von Schadow in these words : f ' This is the reason why
Raphael pleases so universally, because every one finds
what he requires in his works.

* See Appendix, note cxcix.

In the greater number

f See Appendix, note ec.

EAPHAEL'S UNIVERSALITY.

103

of them he satisfied the Christian critic by the suitability
of their spirit with the subject, and the heathen critic
by the beauty and correctness of the form.'
Thus, then, by the all-penetrating power of his
genius, although an Italian and a Catholic, he rose
far above all national and religious peculiarities into
the atmosphere of pure human feeling,

influencing

equally the Eomanic and the Germanic, the Catholic
and the Protestant world.

He is the painter of all

ages, in so far as by means of his art he represents the
perfect unity and harmony of all human effort and
desire.

Whoever can place himself on this high point

of universal influence, must find his own desire symbolically represented in Raphael's creations, and must
feel himself so elevated and purified by them, that he
involuntarily transfers the sublime artistic perceptions
expressed by him into the region of thought and practical reality; for he draws from them the heavenly
breath of that pure ideality, which is in truth the
highest power in all work—in scientific and practical
no less than in artistic.
The contrast to such a universal conception of art as
we see realised in Raphael's works, is afforded by those
tender, sensitive souls who, frightened by the everlasting

204

RAPHAEL SANTI.

struggles of the present, seek a refuge on the other
side of this rude and hard reality—who appear exclusively disposed to transcendental views, to an escape
from the region of the actual, and to a contemplative
life.

Such characters represent a direction of mind,

the truth and importance of which is manifested only
in the full harmony of all mental tendencies, but
which, separately considered, from the starting point of
universality, must be estimated as a disturbance and
aberration of the mental life.

I allude especially to

the tendency of a school of painting which, in the
early part of our own century, in connection subsequently with the Pre-Eaphaelites, formed itself in
Eome under the influence of the German Eomanticists,
and which was designated in ridicule ' the Nazarene.'
Overbeck, Veit, Schadow, and those of similar opinions,
do not find their ideal in Baphael, in whom the
struggle between mind and body is ended, and a glorious harmony is attained.

Their aspirations go fur-

ther back, to those early painters of Italy, unripe but
more ecclesiastically fettered, who are distinguished by
an especial transcendental fervour, by a tendency ' upwards'—a tendency which was decidedly broken by
the appearance of the antique-pagan classic style.

THE ROMANTICIST SCHOOL.

205

In spite of this, the Nazarenes, resting on Fra
Angelico da Fiesole, Perugino, and other earlier masters, have again revived and adopted the transcendental
principles, in which reality is only a sad interregnum,
and the task of all art-representation is to point to
the life beyond.

But when created forms are naturally

chosen for this representation, this is done only to lead
the attention from these to a spiritual purport, for
which such a picture was intended only to be the
vehicle and imperfect suggestion.

In the works, there-

fore, of the masters we have mentioned, another meaning was always intended to be impressed on the
spectator than that represented.

It was not the forms,

not the historical subject, which had an interest in
itself; the aim of the painter was directed solely to
that which lay behind these, and even the history of
the Old Testament was not represented for the sake of
showing in it any direct realisation of the Divine will,
but it also served the artist only as a Christian allegory.

When Overbeck, for example, pourtrayed the

' Expulsion of Hagar,' he did not intend to represent
this, but symbolically, according to St. Paul's interpretation, the children of the Church in contrast
to those of the synagogue; when he composed the

206

KAPHAEL SANTI.

Judgment of Solomon,' he allegorised in his, according
to the explanation of the Fathers of the Church, the
contrast between the true Church of Christ and the
adherents of sects.*

A transcendental meaning is

inadequate to any reality, and for this reason the latter
never appears in its fulness, never in its harmony of
mind and body, never in its unison of reason and sense.
Hence we may explain the lifeless forms, the want of
reality, the absence of the corporeal among the Nazarenes.

They satisfied themselves with the simple

outline—with the intimation of lifeless moving spirits.
The work of art became a hieroglyph, the key to
which lay only in an obstinate dogmatism.

Consist-

ently followed out, it would at last have shrivelled
up into an everlasting ' Ecce H o m o ; ' the world
wore always a Good Friday face.

An art, however,

which leads to this, is a quenching of. the spirit;
aye, even of the Holy Spirit, which ought to guide
mankind into all truth, and into happy concord with
creation.
And yet there lay a truth in this tendency, in the
impulse to fill up the deficiencies, which a style equally

* See Appendix, note cci.

THE ROMANTICIST SCHOOL.

207

one-sided, though in another direction, had shortly
before left behind.

I allude to the modern classic and

plastic style of painting—that of Karstens, Wachter,
and Koch ; designers full of mind and style, but weak
colourists—the appropriators of the old myths, and the
despisers of the more picturesque material of the
middle ages.

The Christian Eomanticists committed

only this error in their contest with these modern
pagan painters, that

they exaggerated their just

aesthetic principles into dogmas, and, instead of satisfying their impulse for the picturesque by seeking the
more appropriate material in the history of the middle
ages, they asserted its myths to be the only true material, and, according to this, they took its immature style
as a lawful model.*

They, therefore, never reached the

extreme, logically in exact opposition to the modern
classics, the extreme of the strictly picturesque; but
they arrived at

i

a prominence of the aesthetic gene-

rally, as a world of licence.'

This extreme is conceiv-

able, and we owe to it infinitely much, ' especially in
the expression of deep feeling, and something also in
animation of colour;' f yet still how far removed is it,

* See Appendix, note ccii.

f See Appendix, note cciii.

208

EAPHAEL SANTI.

just because it is an extreme, from that unity and
harmony of contrasts attained three hundred years
ago.
I have introduced these modern schools into the
limits of my remarks, because I thought we might
thereby obtain a standard for judging the height at
which Eaphael stands.

If, however, I have pronounced

sentence against the modern Christian Eomanticists,
I have done so merely in the name of that sound
universal school of cinque cento, which knew how to
employ the transcendental spirit of the middle ages as
well us that of the ancient world, in guiding art to its
great aim of equalising mind and matter.

Certain it

is, Eaphael was a Christian painter; but if we will
embrace the whole infinite genius of this man in the
idea of Christianity, we must conceive the latter as
vast as it ought to be conceived.

The transcendental

element in the master's conceptions is of such a kind,
that it seems, as it were, vanished to him for whom it
has no meaning, or only one of a more limited character, obscured by reflection, and only that fervour of
mind, that tenderness of soul, that depth of feeling,
that connection between the mind of the artist and his
subject, remains visible, with which the creative spirit

RAPHAEL'S EELIGIOUS FEELING.

209

rooted itself in his subject, and yet, aesthetically free,
hovered above it.*
I cannot sanction the opinion that Eaphael himself
had no faith in the subjects which he represented, and
that it was intentionally that in so many of his pictures
of saints (as, for example, the figures of St. Magdalene
and St. Barbara in the ' St. Cecilia' and the Sistine
6

Madonna')

he introduced glances not directed up-

wards, but straightforward or downwards—glances, too,
which, compared with the other upward-gazing and
adoring figures, expressed a profane course of life in
all their charms and indifference, as if to oppose
to the transcendental enthusiasm and rapture of the
others, the unconstrained human acknowledgment :
6

We draw our joys from earth.'

I consider this

view just as false as the opposite one, which we also
continually meet with, and which amounts to this,
that there is no idea at all of a worldliness of
expression in such figures of Eaphael's, that they far
rather pourtray the specific character of the saint represented in another form indeed, but equally strongly as
the other figures. Thus, for example, in the * St*

* See Appendix, note cciv.
P

210

RAPHAEL SANTI.

Barbara/ according to an article by W. Passauer in
the ' Illustriste Welt,5 * the woman is represented
s

casting her eyes to the ground in the sense of her own

unworthiness in comparison with the Virgin's selfsacrifice; the woman who, not born for action, desponds when she herself can offer no sacrifice—bending her knee in humble adoration and full of reverence—the woman who, according to her destiny, finds
satisfaction in the sacrifice and adoration of that which
appears to her an inconceivable act.'

Nothing of all

this can I perceive in the ' St. Barbara' as she stands
before me with no halo of glory.

I should rather

regard this whole controversy in general as useless,
insignificant, and entirely resting on the old experience,
that art-critics are only too inclined to transfer their
own private opinion to the work of the artist, and to
discover a fresh confirmation of this in each separate
production.

Although it is certain that, for example, in

the earlier Sienese and Umbrian schools, figures of such
a worldly exterior as St. Barbara and St. Magdalene
had never been produced, yet Eaphael created them assuredly not, as it were, only as a proof of his inward

See Appendix, note ccv.

RAPHAEL'S RELIGIOUS FEELING.

211

unbelieving, anti-ecclesiastical views, as a symbol of a
mental reservation, as a self-excuse for his representation of sacred subjects, which possessed nothing of
sacredness for him, but far rather because overruled bypicturesque reasons, and at the same time in obedience
to a certain instinctive feeling, which revealed to him
the truth, still often unperceived, that beauty of form
has in itself an artistic, aye, even an ethical importance,
as the vehicle of the ideal of beauty.

That Eaphael,

even in his representations from sacred history, indulged in such purely artistic motives, is proved by the
immense advance he made compared with his predecessors ; we are also assured of it when we see how far
he outstepped all hitherto dogmatic and ecclesiastical
aims in the exercise of his art, and thus gradually made
its object the whole unlimited sphere of human life.
Certain it is, that there is not a trace to be discovered in his character of the frivolity of a Voltaire,
nor of the scoffing infidelity of modern sceptics and
materialists; he believed, according to the statutes of
his Church, in the Mother of Grod and in all saints, as
much as any of his contemporaries; he was even, indeed, received, on March 1, 1514, into the strict
ecclesiastical and Catholic Fraternitas Corporis Christ!
p 2

212

RAPHAEL SANT1.

at Urbino—a fraternity which, originating in Eome and
existing, even to the present day, in all the more
important cities of Catholic Christendom, pledged its
members to an especially active participation in the
sacrament of the Eucharist.

But when Eaphael created

his pictures of saints and virgins, he did so as an artist
who had been trained in the pagan school as well as in
the Christian, and who, above all, limited by no narrowminded considerations, knew how to draw from the
fountain-head of nature with the purest and fullest
freedom of mind, recognising, whether the subject to
be represented was profane or sacred, no other law
than that of beauty, the idea of which was ever present
with him.

That he was permitted to do this, without

giving offence to his patrons, he owed partly to the
enlightenment of his age, which, by literary, scientific,
and artistic efforts of various kinds, was sufficiently
prepared to allow itself to be easily carried away by
the new ideal, thus displayed in all its reality; but
he owed this permission, for the most part, to his own
unattainable genius, which, like every true genius, was
strong enough to stand before the world and proclaim:
I am myself the lawgiver!
Christianity calls into exercise the feelings of men far

FORMS OF ART.

213

more than antiquity was able to do, and hence, undeniably, mediaeval art acquires its peculiar character.
When, therefore, in Eaphael this deep feeling is linked
in the utmost harmony with ancient plastic art, he
seems by this means to stand at the turning-point of
two great epochs of civilisation, and is essentially characterised as belonging to a modern age, which labours
continually at a synthesis of the middle ages and antiquity, without having hitherto discovered its principles.
The type of antiquity is the objective form, the plastic;
the type of the middle ages is deep feeling, from
whence our music (originating in church melodies)
arose, as the prime of its perfection.

The transition,

however, to modern art, whose most distinguishing
characteristic it is, that, full of thought, it culminates
in poetry and rhetoric, is effected by painting, which
may be defined, therefore, as the musical-plastic art,
because this art, like all mental life, rests on two
fundamental agents, one subjective and one objective—
on the world of feeling on the one side, and on that of
outward things on the other; and because, when these
two agents, each by itself, are artistically perfected,
music and the plastic art arise as the two opposite
poles, within which all other forms of art revolve—

EAPHAEE SANTI.

214

which are, in truth, only various proportions of the
blending of these two agents.

Architecture derives its

significance from the subjective side; it imitates in
itself none of the forms of nature, but it has as its
foundation the realisation of human objects.

These,

conceived as the highest points of art, and formed into
an ideal harmony, justify the designation of this art as
plastic

music;

whilst painting, taking her objects

from nature, not, however, in plastic repose, but penetrated and filled with human feelings, representing
longing, sadness, rapture, and so forth, may with
equal justice be designated as a musical plastic art.
While painting, however, in undertaking the highest
themes in the age of the cinque-centists, and displaying
the Ideal, the Eternal, and the Divine, not as the gods
of the ancient world, but as sacred pictures produced
by religious feeling, formed the transition we have
before pointed out,—a part of extraordinary importance
belongs to this art in the history of human civilisation.
And this is, indeed, in nowise denied her.

In the

thorough revolution of ideas which she caused in the
period of her highest prime, this fact, perhaps, is most
worthy of observation, that the great painter, Michael
Angelo, Eaphael's only rival, made the resolution

DECLINE OF ART.

215

shortly before the close of his career, which he was
long ere he attained, to take leave of art altogether,
and to absorb himself entirely in contemplation.

We

may, of course, perceive in this only an individual
caprice; yet involuntarily it acquires a special importance from the fact that it arose in the mind of one of
the greatest artists of all ages, and this in the golden
period of the art he had especially exercised.

We may

trace herein a prophetic utterance of the course which
art in general was to take—it was to give place to
scientific reflection—and thus in modern times to
acquire a position totally different to that which it had
possessed in the great epoch of which we have been
treating—that is, it was to hold a subordinate place.
Formerly the centre, it now withdrew aside; formerly
the principal thing, it now became ornament and
arabesque.
The end of the middle ages, and the beginning
of modern times, may be called the classic epoch of
painting, because in a certain measure it was the last
attempt to reconcile the objective and subjective; but
this union falls beyond the domain of the plastic arts,
and belongs to that of thought, the key to which may
be perceived in the art productions of the time.

The

RAPHAEL SANTI.

21(5

plastic arts fell at once into decline, as soon as the
word was issued for subjective religious liberty; for
in this liberty of thought, life obtains a new centre,
and the stars of art recede in the light of this daystar.

When, however, Baphael's divine form still

walked the earth, painting then stood above all as the
highest acquisition to which the Eomanic nations had
ever attained; the bond between religion and beauty,
heaven and earth, was concluded.

And yet this

glorious prime contained in itself even then the germs of
its dissolution.

The soul of Italian art perished, when

the noble author of that incomparable bond was
snatched from earth.

Because he had summed up in

himself all the perfections of former times, there was
now only a fragmentary sundering of his universal
aims left behind on the field of art.

Eaphael forms no

school, because he is the end and close of an era in
mental development; all that could be expressed within
the sphere of art which he embraced, was expressed
by him; his pupils are indeed only pupils, who cultivate his manner.

Inadequate imitation, syncretism,

and artificial work, this is all that comes after him.
Even the most talented imitators of the great style of
Eaphael and Michael Angelo lack ever something,

DECLINE OF ART.

217

*a last touch, a dot to an I, a point of light in an
eye;' * and although Titian maintained the high fame
of the Venetian school long after Eaphael (he did not
die till 1576), and this school, on account of its solid
and healthy study of nature, declined less rapidly in
style than the Eoman school, whose decline is observable as early as the middle of the sixteenth century;
and although even among the later eclectics, who
endeavoured to unite the grace of Correggio with the
serious grandeur of the Eoman masters, a Gruido Eeni,
who lived till 1642, towers above all as a master of a
peculiarly spiritual style of painting; it yet remains
evident that neither the later Venetians, nor Guido,
nor the contemporaneous Caracci belong to the age of
the cinque-eentists, in which painting formed

the

central point of all the mental culture of Italy.

The

political destinies of Italy interrupted the lasting
culture of the spirit excited by Eaphael.

The living

genius of that day grasped with awakened thought after
paths essentially new, in which artistic intervention
seems only fictitious.

The forms of art which appear

after this period are essentially those in which thought

* See Appendix, note ecvi.

218

EAPHAEL SANTI.

and reflection hold a distinguished place, so that at last
thought appears, so to speak, in jpuris naturalibus

in

those philosophers, with whom it maintains a principal
importance both for science and life.
In this state of things, to remodel life anew and
ever to be born again, is the task that lies before the
present; it cannot avoid the process, however fruitless
it may regard it, and however essentially practical in
their character may be its aims for the moment.

Art

need not therefore be idle; under any circumstances
she must co-operate for the highest aims of mankind,
while she leads thern ever anew to consciousness, and
is appointed to beautify and to regulate the structure
of human life in all its parts.

This must she do, even

when she appears more than ever removed from her
central position.

And who, moreover, would presume

to deny her for ever the possibility of once again
appearing in the central point of all intellectual life!
He who believes in an advance of mankind cannot
despair of this possibility; for it is art alone, and not
science, nor even industry and multiplication of material, which conquers in those battles of the human
mind that form the true epochs of history.

Only when

the entire life of the man represents a work of art,

THE FUTUBE OF ART.

219

is it to be called truly happy and morally beautiful,
and from such an ideal we are still far distant.
We do not, therefore, lack scope for artistic activity;
art has yet indeed a task to achieve.

But who can

foretell when this may be ? For the civilisation of the
modern Christian* era, which begins with Eaphael's
age, he prepared the way; all opposition to our
civilisation is extinguished in EaphaeFs art.

We see

not indeed the epoch of a still higher art; but the
probability of its existence seems as though it might
be anticipated as the one encouragement for the future
of the human race.

Phidias towers above Eaphael;

for the latter drew his conceptions, like the entire age
of the Eenaissance, from the antique ideal of beauty,
far more than from the works of the later Greek or
even Eoman art, which even to our own day impedes
our unbiassed imitation of Phidias.

How much harm

6

has the Laocoon' of Michael Angelo done in its classic
imitation, how long have we seen the spirit of the
antique only through the glasses of a ruder Eoman
art and literature, how long have we been kept aloof
from a deeper study of the Greek tragedies and of
Pindar, in whom lies the key to a true understanding
of the Periclean-Hellenic art!

Even at the present day,

RAPHAEL SANTI.

220

Phidias stands before us as a mystery, whose interpretation we have never reached.

Christianity has not

yet been brought into harmony with the ideal of
Phidias.

If, however, it is appointed to us to attain

to this, it will be the hand of an artist that accomplishes the work.
No immediate future can possibly produce this artist.
Amid the small prospects that remain to us, it only
concerns us to guard the possession we have gained
against the attacks of extreme tendencies, and to set
aside all disturbances thus arising to the unity already
attained, in the maintenance of which all human efforts
should concur.

Wherever this is the case, we shall

feel ourselves filled with enthusiasm for Eaphael—the
first establisher of this unity in the world of art,—as a
master homogeneous and kindred with our own time;
his importance will endure for all ages, for he was a
fellow-labourer in those most important problems of
life which are committed to all mankind.

APPENDIX.
NOTE I.

Page 5.

Parallel between Roehlitz, Kaphael, and Mozart (Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, ii. 641, et seq.), also between
Alberti, Raphael, and Mozart (Stettin, 1856).
NOTE II.

Page 5.

Jahn's Mozart, iv. 744, et seq.
NOTE III.

Page 5..

NOTE IV.

Page 5.

Ibid., iv. 746.
See Schelling's Works (Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1860), viL
305, et seq., in the paper: Ueber das Verhaltniss der
bildenden Kunste zu der Natur (1807).
NOTE V.

Page 9.

Ibid., p. 318, et seq.
NOTE V I .

Page 11.

See Friedrich Theodor Vischer's Aesthetik oder Wissenschaft des Schonen (Stuttgart, 1853), iii. 3, 716-717,
NOTE VIL

Page 14.

Goethe's Works, edition of 1833, xl. 205,

222

RAPHAEL SANTI.
NOTE VIII.

Page 15.

Conferences de Notre-Dame de Paris, par le E. P. HenriDominique Lacordaire (Paris, 1861), i. 175.
NOTE IX.

Page 18.

See Phantasien uber die Kunst.
new edition, p. 28.
NOTE X.

Tieck (Berlin, 1814),

Page 19.

See Guhl, Kunstlerbriefe (Berlin, 1853), i. 113-114.
NOTE XI.

Page 19.

See Springer, Raphael's Disputa (Bonn, 1860), p. 3.
NOTE XII.

Page 25.

This picture, a Holy Family, has been presented by the
painter Wicar to his native city, Lille. Cf. Guhl, Kiinstlerbriefe, i. 121.
NOTE XIII. Page 25.
Cf. Agostino Oldoini with Passavant's Rafael von Urbino
und sein Vater Giovanni Santi (Leipsic, 1839-58), i. 521.
NOTE XIV.

Page 29.

Cf. Passavant's Rafael, ii. 9-28.
NOTE XV.

Page 29.

See Le Vite de' piu eccellenti Pittori, Scultori e Architetti
di Giorgio Vasari (Triest, 1862), i. 537.
NOTE XVI.

See Le Vite, 398, 399.

Page 30.

APPENDIX.

223

NOTE XYII. Page 30.
That Vasari's statement in the Life of Pinturicchio (pp.
398, 399), a statement which he has himself essentially modified in his Life of Kaphael, p. 537, may be modified into
Raphael's share in the Sienese frescoes, is clearly explained
by Felix le Monnier in his remarks in the Florentine edition
of Yasari (1846). (Cf. Triest edition, from which our quotations are always taken, p. 400, columns 1 and 2, note i., and
p. 401, column 1).
The passages alluded to are as follows:—pp. 398, 399, ' Ma
e ben vero che gli schizzi e i cartoni di tutte le storie ch' egli
(Pinturicchio) vi fece, furono di mano di Raffaello da Urbino,'
while at p. 537 we read: ' II quale (Pinturicchio) essendo
amico di RafFaello e conoscendolo ottimo disegnatore, lo condusse a Siena, dove RafFaello gli fece alcuni disegni e cartoni
di quell' opera/
NOTE XVIII. Page 31.
See Quatremere de Quincy, Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Raphael (2nd edition, Paris, 1838), ii. 37-38.
NOTE XIX.

Page 32.

This is decidedly an error of Quatremere's. According to
Winckelmann, Botticher, and others, by far the greater
number of antiques generally known had been excavated
before the end of the sixteenth century.
NOTE XX.

Page 33.

There is indeed extant in print a letter of recommendation,
dated October 1, 1504, from Johanna, the daughter of Federigo
of Urbino, and wife of Francesco Maria della Rovere, the
prefect of the city of Rome, to the gonfaloniere Pietro Soderini

224

RAPHAEL SANTI.

in Florence (Cf. Bottari, Raccolta di Lettere sulla Pittura,
Scultura, e Architettura (Rome, 1759-1770), i. 1; Pungileoni,
Elogio Storico di Raffaello Santi da Urbino (Urbino, 1829),
p. 45, et seq.; Guhl, Klinstlerbriefe, i. 118-119; Passavant,
i. 527, 528, et seq ). I, however, share Hermann Grimm's
suspicion, that this letter was a subsequent contrivance, and
therefore not genuine. (Cf. the paper ' Rafael's Disputa und
Schule von Athen, seine Sonette und seine Geliebte,' in the
Preussische Jahrbucher, by Haym, Berlin, 1864 vol. xiii. pt. i.
pp. 22-24). The following passage appears, for instance, in
the letter :—' As his father is a most excellent man and on
terms of intimacy with myself, and the son is also modest and
well-mannered, I am exceedingly fond of him in every
respect, and desire that he should arrive at great perfection.'
Giovanni Santi, however, had in 1504 been dead for ten
years, and the ' perche il padre so che e molto virtuoso ed e
mio affezionato,' of the Italian text is, therefore, a stumblingblock, which Rumohr endeavours to remove by substituting
' i l padre suo stato e,' for 'so che e; ' while the Florentine
editors of Vasari (see p. 537, column 2, note ii., of the Triest
edition), suppose that in the manuscript it was written ' so,'
that is, the abbreviation for i suto,' and that Bottari, wrho first
edited the letter, inserted the following ' che ' and the second
< e' (che e molto virtuoso, ed e mio affezionato). Suto instead
of stato is, however, only to be found in prose among the
Trecentists, and in Raphael's time it was a rare poetic expression. Pungileoni, lastly, is of opinion (pp. 45, 46) that it
was not Raphael who was alluded to in the letter, but another
painter of Urbino, named RafFaello di Ghisello, who appeared
in the middle of the sixteenth century. None of these interpretations please me, and I am therefore inclined to believe in

APPENDIX.

225

a subsequent invention of the letter, which is not an unusual
circumstance in Italian literature.
I must also draw attention here to the following doubt.
Quatremere de Quincy, Histoire de Eaphael, pp. 18-22, in
order to remove pretended errors and anachronisms in Vasari's
narrative, gathers together a consecutive account of the events
in Raphael's life at that time, partly from the statements of
the Vita inedita di Raffaello da Urbino illustrata con note da
Angelo Comolli (Rome, 1790, 2nd edition 1791, p. 10,
note xvi.), an anonymous work, which is only to be consulted
with caution. In 1503, he makes him separate from Siena and
Pinturicchio; immediately afterwards he visits Florence for
the first time (and this indeed for other reasons than for the
sake of the cartoons of Da Vinci and Michael Angelo) ; after
that he resides for a year partly there and partly in Perugia,
and towards the end of the year 1504 he returns to Urbino ;
and then for the second time he goes to Florence for the sake
of the cartoons,—this time with Joanna di Rovere's letter of
recommendation. These conjectures, however, rest on erroneous premises. Quatremere thinks that Pinturicchio's
works in the Libreria at Siena were finished in 1503, that
Vasari says in his Vita of Raphael that the latter left Siena
for Florence, attracted by the already completed cartoons of
Da Vinci and Michael Angelo, and that the cartoon of the
latter was not finished till July 1506. Vasari's editors, however, show that Pinturicchio was occupied at Siena at all events
till 1506, and perhaps even till 1509. (Trieste edition, p. 399,
note i., and p. 400, note ii., to the before-mentioned note in
the Vita of Pinturicchio.) Raphael, therefore, need not
necessarily have gone to Florence as early as 1503, to have
left Siena before the completion of the frescoes, and the

226

RAPHAEL SANTf.

passage in Vasari's life of Raphael, in which he speaks of
the Florentine cartoons (p. 537), reads simply thus: ' La
cagione che egli non continue) (quell' opera a Siena) fu, che
essendo in Siena da alcuni pittjri con grandissimi lodi celebrate il cartone che Lionardo da Vinci aveva fatto nella sala
del papa in Fiorenza d' un gruppo di cavalli bellissimo per
farlo nella sala del palazzo, e similmente alcuni nudi fatti, a
concorrenza di Lionardo, da Michelagnolo Buonarotti molto
migliori, venne in tanto desiderio Raffaello per 1' amore che
porto sempre all' eccellenza dell' arte che . . . . se ne
venne a Fiorenza.' Where is there one word here saying
that Michael Angelo's cartoon was already completed, when
Raphael went to Florence ? Vasari says nothing further than
that Lionardo at that time had completed (aveva fatto) his
cartoon in competition with Michael Angelo, who had executed some nude forms of extreme beauty. The cartoon of
Michael Angelo was, on the other hand, according to Gaye,
Carteggio inedito d' Artisti dei Secoli XIV.-XVI. (Florence,
1840), ii. 92-93, completely finished by August 1505. (Cf.
p. 1041, note i., of the Vita di Michelagnolo by Vasari.)
The uncritical and conjectural nature of Quatremere's history
is sufficiently evidenced by this one example.

NOTE XXI.

Page 35.

Cf. Kugler, Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte (3rd edition,
Stuttgart, 1859), vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 626.

NOTE XXII.

Page 36.

Braun, RaiFael's Disputa (Dlisseldorf, 1859), p. 57.

APPENDIX.
NOTE XXIII.

227

Page 36.

See Le Yite, p. 557.
NOTE XXIV.

Page 37.

Vischer, Aesthetik (Reutlingen and Leipsic, 1851), pt. iii.
section i. p. 129.
NOTE XXV.

Page 39.

See Passavant, Kunstreise durch England und Belgien
(Frankfort on the Maine, 1833), p. 99.
NOTE XXVI.

Page 39.

See Passavant's Eafael, i. 87, ii. 38.
Pinakothek.
NOTE XXVII.

It is not in the

Page 41.

See Passavant's Kunstreise durch England, p. 173-4.
NOTE XXVIII.

Page 41.

Ibid., p. 148.
NOTE XXIX.

Page 41.

See Le Vite, in the Vita di Baccio d' Agnolo, p. 722.
NOTE XXX.

Page 42.

A circular picture, in which the Virgin is represented at the
right, sitting in a country scene, holding the Infant Christ,
wrapt round with one end of her veil, while on the left,
Joseph, kneeling, is oiFering him flowers, towards which he
holds out both his hands. This picture is, unfortunately, in a
very bad condition, not only very much stained, but also
much effaced; it was transferred from wood to coarse canvass.
Q2

RAPHAEL SANTI.

228

The figure of Joseph, moreover, appears to be by another
hand. Cf. Passavant, Kunstreise durch England, p. 53.
NOTE XXXI.

Page 43.

This brilliant court is accurately depicted in Giesebrecht's
and Bohmer's periodical, Damaris (Stettin, 1864), vol. iv.
No. i. p. 49 et seq., entitled 'Der Furstenhof der letzten
Montefeltri in Urbino,' by Giesebrecht.
NOTE XXXII.

Page 43.

Castiglione, Poesie Volgare e Latine (Eome, 1760), xxi.
NOTE XXXIII.

Page 46.

See Passavant, Kunstreise durch England und Belgien,
p. 103-104, and Giesebrecht, Damaris (1864), p. 62.
NOTE XXXIV.

Page 46.

Le Vite, p. 539.
NOTE XXXV.

Page 46.

Cf. Ernst Fbrster's paper in the Deutschen Museum (1864),
No. xix. p. 691, entitled 'Die Pinakothek in Munchen.'
NOTE XXXVI.

Page 47.

See Passavant's Life of Eaphael, ii. 73.
NOTE XXXVII.

Page 48.

Histoire de Eaphael, p. 46.
NOTE XXXVIIL
Le Vite, p. 540.

Page 48.

APPENDIX.
NOTE XXXIX.

229

Page 49.

Forster considers it to have been painted immediately
before the above-mentioned ' Holy Family ' of D. Canigiani,
which the picture certainly resembles in colouring. The
period at which the ' Madonna dei Tempi ' was executed is not
indeed accurately certain ; but it is allowed, as Forster shows,
that in composition and execution it is superior to the picture
painted for Canigiani, though, on the other hand, the ' Madonna
dei Tempi' possesses far more of Perugino's feeling than that
painting.
NOTE XL.

Page 50.

See Passavant, Kunstreise durch England und Belgien,
p. 99.
NOTE XLI.

Page 53.

See Eumohr, Ueber Eafael, pp. 75, 76.
NOTE XLIL

Page 53.

Gothe's works (edition of 1840), xxx. 466-467.
paper entitled l Antik und Modern.'
NOTE XLIII.

See the

Page 55.

Passavant, Eafael, i. 135.
NOTE XLIV.

Page 56.

Giihl, Kunstlerbriefe, i. 113.
NOTE XLY.

Page 56.

See Herman Grimm's paper upon Eaphael in the Preussische Jahrbucher, January 1864, p. 35.

230

RAPHAEL SANTI.
NOTE XLVI.

Page 57.

Richardson, Traite de la Peinture (Amsterdam, 1722), iii.
p* 323. i J'ai un ami qui a vu a Rome . . . une lettre
originale de Raphael a Arioste (which has been lost) dont le
contenu consistait a lui demander son secours pour le tableau
de " La Theologie," par rapport aux caracteres des personnes
qu'il devait j faire entrer,' &c.
NOTE XLVII. Page 58.
This designation did not proceed, as in the other Vatican
apartments, from the choice of the pictures, but from the business executed here. Cf. Bangen, Die rbmische Curie (Miinster,
1854), pp. 370 and 391.
NOTE XLVIII.

Page 58.

Cf. Springer, Disputa, pp. 6-7.
NOTE XLIX.

Page 60.

See Rumohr, pp. 85, 86, 97.
NOTE L.

Page 60.

Bellori, Descrizione delle Immagini dipinte da Raffaello
nelle camere del Vaticano (Rome, 1695).
NOTE LI.

Trendelenburg, Raphael's
1843).
NOTE LIL

Le Vite, pp. 542-543.

Page 60.

School of Athens

Page 60.

(Berlin,

APPENDIX.

231

NOTE LIII. Page 61.
Cf. Preussische Jahrbiicher, January 1864, pp. 32-33.
NOTE LIV.

Page 61.

Braun, Raphael's Disputa, p. 67.
NOTE LV.

Page 63.

Cf. Preussische Jahrbiicher, January 1864, p. 28.
NOTE LVI.

Page 65.

Springer, Disputa, pp. 42-43 ; and Preussische Jahrbiicher,
January 1864, p. 36.
NOTE LV1L

Page 65.

Springer, Disputa, pp. 23, 26, and 27.
NOTE LYIII.

Page 66.

Preussische Jahrbiicher, January 1864, p. 37.
NOTE LIX.

Page 67.

Le Yite, p. 541.
NOTE LX.

Page 67.

' That the titles Timeo and Etica, even if the books
formerly bore these inscriptions, are modern in their present
form, can scarcely be a matter of dispute. They would
hardly have been permitted in Raphael's time in such orthography in such a place. According to Yasari's statement,
however, they have only been applied by moderns.'—Cf.
Grimm, in the Preussische Jahrbiicher, February 1864,
pp. 152-153.

232

RAPHAEL SANTI.
NOTE LXT.

Page 70.

See Preussische Jahrbucher, January 1864, pp. 32-33.
NOTELXIL

Page 73.

Cf. Herman Grimm's paper in the Preussische Jahrbiicher, February 1864, pp. 150-153, where all the reasons
are put together, which are in favour of the supposition that
Paul, and not Plato, is represented. When Grimm, in conclusion (p. 159), with perhaps an exaggerated consideration
for Vasari, begins again to doubt respecting Paul, I do not
feel inclined to follow his scruples. Eaphael may have
heaped anachronism on anachronism in the c School of Athens,'
and thus have given occasion for the many erroneous interpretations which this picture has suffered; in the idea itself,
on which the dramatic interest of the whole conception
depends, and which invests it with true unity and power,
there is certainly no obscurity, and this idea comes before us
with perfect clearness, and superior to all anachronisms, when
we see St. Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, by the side
of Aristotle, the representative of scholastic theology. The
more we fulfil our duty of interpreting the conceptions of
the great masters of the golden age only by the opinions of
their own time, not approaching their works with the measuring scale of modern critics, the more certainly, in spite of
Vasari, though a contemporary, do Paul and Aristotle stand
their ground. All that we dislike in this interpretation
may be put down to a naive caprice and custom prevailing
in all the pictures of this period, and which indeed does not
in the least affect their artistic perfection.
Think, for
example, of the portraits in the pictures of the Madonna and
Saints of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is no

APPENDIX.

233

historical, but an artistic truth which they reveal. One more
curious fact yet remains to be mentioned. In Thomassin's
engraving of the ' School of Athens,' in the year 1617, the
two central figures are adorned with a halo, from wThich it
appears that the Apostle Peter was at that time recognised in
Aristotle; but this interpretation, as Springer shows (Disputa,
p. 9), evidently belongs entirely to an age in which humanistic
studies had fallen into oblivion in Eome and Italy, a stricter
church discipline had again prevailed, and in consequence of
this the apotheosis of the Greek genius depicted in the ' School
of Athens' was no longer understood. At that time the interpreters changed the purport of the picture into a dispute of
the two princes of the apostles with Greek philosophers; but
this interpretation certainly does not belong to Eaphael's
time.
NOTE LXIII.

Page 73.

Cf.] Grimm, Preussische Jahrbiicher, January 1864, p. 36.
Grimm is certainly right when, in opposition to Vasari's
editors, he considers the lParnassus' to have been painted
before the * Disputa' and the ' School of Athens,' and the date
1511, which stands below it, and which the other pictures
lack, to refer to the completion of the whole apartment, and
not to this especial painting. Yasari himself considers the
1
School of Athens' to have been the first and the * Disputa '
the last of the three compositions.

NOTE LXIV.

Page 75.

Cf. Europa, a periodical edited by F. v. Schlegel, vol. i. pt. i.
p. 114. i There is no confusion of men, but few and separate
figures, completed with that care which is natural to a sense

234

KAPHAEL SANTI.

of the dignity and sacredness of the sublimest of all hieroglyphic problems—namely, human life.'
NOTE LXV.

Page 75.

See Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, ii. 58.
NOTE LXVI.

Page 75.

See Eoscoe's Life of Leo X., iii. 240.
NOTE LXVIL

Page 77.

See Vischer, Aesthetik, iii. 1, 23.
NOTELXVIII.

Page 77.

Ibid., ii. 498 ; iii. 3, 713.
NOTE LXIX.

Page 78.

See Gaye, Carteggio Inedito d' Artisti, ecc, ii. 489.
NOTE LXX.

Page 80.

Cf. Grimm, Preussische Jahrbiicher, February 1864,
pp. 156-157, in which Michael Angelo's indisputable influence
upon Eaphael is represented far more dispassionately, and on
far better authority, than is the case with Passavant and with
Eumohr before him, the latter of whom could not with the
same certainty decide the controversy respecting the reasons
for the change in Eaphael's style, siace he assigned a later
date to Michael Angelo's frescoes in the Sistina. The passage in Vasari's Life of Michael Angelo (Le Yite, p. 1046),
1
dove EafFaello da Urbino, che era molto eccellente in
imitare, vistola (namely, the frescoes on the ceiling of the

APPENDIX.

235

Sistine chapel), muto subito maniera,' agrees throughout
with the above-quoted account in Gaye's Carteggio.
NOTE LXXI.

Page 80.

See Le Vite, p. 544.
NOTE LXXII.

Page 81.

Quatremere de Quincy, Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages
de Kaphael, p. 77.
NOTE LXXIII.

Page 81.

Cf. Grimm's paper, Preussische Jahrbucher,
1864, p. 156.
NOTE LXXIY.

February

Page 82.

Michael Angelo's relation to the antique has been estimated
more impartially by Friederichs in Berlin than by Winckelmann. Cf. Christliches Kunstblatt fur Kirche, Schule und
Haus (Stuttgart, 1864), February 1, No. ii. p. 17 et seq.
NOTE LXXY. Page 82.
Le Yite, pp. 557-558. l Ma conoscendo che non poteva in
questa parte arrivare alia perfezione di Michelagnolo, come
uomo di grandissimo giudizio, considero che la pittura non
consiste solamente in fare uomini nudi, ma che ell' ha il
campo largo . . . e mescolando col detto modo alcuni scelti
delle cose migliori d' altri maestri, fece di molte maniere una
sola, che fu poi sempre tenuta sua propria, la quale fu e sara
sempre stimata dagli artefici infmamente.'

RAPHAEL SANTI.

23f]

NOTE LXXVL

Page 83.

Lettera di Michelangiolo Buonarotti, trovata da S. Ciampi
(Florence, 1834), p. 7.
NOTE LXXVII.

Page 83.

Cf. Essays (Hanover, 1859), pp. 188, 197, 198.
NOTE LXXVIII.

Page 83.

Lomazzo, Idea del Tempio della Pittura (Milan, 1590-4).
NOTE LXXIX.

Page 84.

The same account may be found in M. de Piles' Abrege
de la Vie des Peintres (Amsterdam andLeipsic, 1767 ; vol. i.
of the CEuvres Diverses, p. 103); while Quatremere de
Quincy, Raphael, p. 339, note iii., changes ' prevot' into
1
generale.'
NOTE LXXX.

Page 85.

Le Vite, .p. 562. I have availed myself of Schorn and
Forster's translation, vol. iii. sect. i. p. 250.
NOTELXXXI.

Page 86.

Le Vite, p. 536.
NOTELXXXII.

Page 86.

Paolo Giovio's Raphaelis Urbinatis Vita first appeared in
Girolami Tiraboschi's Storia della Litteratura Italiana (Milan,
1822-1826, vol. xiv.); Passavant has inserted this short
Latin sketch of the author, who had been living in Rome in
the papal court since the year 1516, in the appendix of his first
volume, No. xv. pp. 553-554.

APPENDIX.
NOTE LXXXIII.

237

Page 87.

Le Vite, p. 562.
NOTELXXXIV.

Page 87.

Grimm's Essays, p. 185.
NOTE LXXXV.

Page 88.

Italienische Reise (edition of 1840 of Goethe's works),
xxiv. 92.
NOTE LXXXVI.

Page 89.

NOTELXXXVII.

Page 90.

Ibid., p. 79.

Passavant's Raphael, i. 552.
NOTE LXXXYIII.

Page 91.

Cf. Longhena, Istoria della Yita e delle Opere di Raffaello
Sanzio da Urbino, del Sig. Quatremere de Quincy, ecc. (Milan,
1829), p. 657. (Cf. Passavant, i. 226, where, moreover, Misserini is erroneously written.)
NOTE LXXXIX.

Page 91.

Passavant, iii. 35.
NOTE XC.

Page 9 1 .

Le Vite, p. 560.
NOTE XCI.

Page 92.

Preussische Jahrbiicher, February 1864, p. 170.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

233

NOTE XCII.

Page 93.

Cf. Passavant, i. p. 225.
NOTE XCIII.

Page 94.

NOTEXCIV.

Page 94.

Ibid., p. 226.

Ibid., iii. p. 36.
NOTE XCV.

Page 94.

Le Yite, pp. 554-555.
NOTE XCVI.

Page 100.

NOTE XCVII.

Page 101.

Ibid., p. 559.

Ibid., p. 560, note i. Le Monnier warmly refutes this in
the Florentine edition of Yasari (1846).
NOTE XCYIIL

Page 102.

Cf. Preussische Jahrbucher, January 1864, pp. 25-26.
NOTE XCIX. Page 102.
The inscription may be thus translated: ' To God, the allpowerful, the all-wise. To Maria Bibbiena, daughter of
Antonio, his bride, who was snatched away by death from a
happy union, who before her bridal torches were kindled,
quitted this earth as a virgin, to her, the all-worthy, is this
monument erected by Balthasar Turini of Pescia, the datary
o£ Leo X., and John Baptist Branconio of Aquila, papal
chamberlain, according to the testament placed under the
care of Hieronymus Yagnini of Urbino, a relation of Eaphael's,

APPENDIX.

239

who also enlarged the chapel out of his own fortune' (cf. Passavant, i. 324-325, 559, where the Latin text is inserted).
On the other hand, the editors of Yasari remark (p. 560,
sect. i. note i. of the Trieste edition) that Pungileoni, in the
Elogio di RafFaello, p. 166, in contradiction to the inscription (' invece'), speaks of Marietta, the daughter of Pietro, a
natural brother of the ecclesiastical dignitary (that is, of
Cardinal Bibbiena), who was married in 1515 to the Urbino
noble and treasurer of the papal army, Bernardino Peruli,
with a dowry of 5,000 gold scudi. If, however, we examine
the passage in Pungileoni more accurately, we readily perceive that the editors have assigned a false meaning to it.
Pungileoni says nothing more than (beginning at p. 165) :
' E cosa narrata le mille volte, che il cardinale Divizio da
Bibiena gli (that is Eaphael) ofFerse in isposa Maria, figlia di
suo nipote Antonio; ma niuno si e dato il pensiero d' indagare
in qual anno gliene facesse la non disgradita esibizione (in
what year he made him the not rejected proposal). Una
lettera trovata fra le scritture del duca d' Urbino Francesco
Maria secondo, da lui, finche visse, custodite con la maggior
gelosia, ne accerta che EafTaello era disposto ad accettarla per
donna; che gliene aveva fatto solenne promessa coll' assenso
degli zii paterno e materno; che aveva ricusati piu altri
vantaggiosi partiti, ecc. Poi dove rinnovargliela nel 1515,
allorche Marietta, figlia di Pietro, fratello carnale del Porporato, venne sposata con dote di cinque mila scudi d' oro in
oro di camera a Bernardino Peruli/ &c. Where is there
one word here that Pungileoni considers Marietta, the
daughter of Pietro, identical with Maria, the daughter of
Antonio ? Where is there one word that, from the contents
of a letter found among the papers of the duke of Urbino, he

240

EAPHAEL SANTI.

aims at a refutation of the inscription on the monument of
Maria Bibbiena in the Pantheon? The passage from the
letter is merely given to fix the date more accurately when
the Cardinal Bibbiena offered his niece in marriage to
Eaphael. The 'Poi dove (— dovette) rinnovargliela nel
1515, allorchej &c, only means, afterwards, in 1515, at the
same time that Marietta married Peruli, he (that is, Kaphael)
had to repeat it (that is, the solemn promise, c solenne promessa,' to marry Maria). How could it be more plainly
expressed that Marietta and Maria were not identical; that
Pungileoni intended nothing but to furnish a proof that in
1515, Eaphael's connection with Maria was not at an end;
just as, at p. 167, he again shows that this was not the case
even in 1517 ? He there mentions a letter of Bartolomeo
Divizj, the eldest brother of the cardinal, written in the year
1517 to the Latin poet Giovenale, in which Eaphael's name
again appears in connection with that of Bernardino (Peruli),
though to the former the epithet ' nostro ' is added, ' per 1' alta
riputazione ch' ei godeva, e per la lusinga di strignere seco lui
( = con lui) nodi di parentela indissolubili,' that is, to form
an indissoluble bond with him, the famous Eaphael, both on
account of the high reputation he enjoyed, and from the
flattering nature of the connection. We see that all these
statements in no wise contradict the purport of the epitaph,
according to which Maria died' before Eaphael, as his
affianced ; they would, indeed, be rather confirmatory to it if
Pungileoni could have succeeded in finding still further documents of the years 1517 to 1520 (the year in which Eaphael
died), which would place the continuation of the attachment
up to the death of the betrothed beyond a doubt.

APPENDIX.
NOTE C.

241

Page 103.

Guhl, Kiinstlerbriefe, i. 122-123.
NOTE CI.

Page 105.

Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung of July 30, 1857.
NOTE CII.

Page 105.

See Buchanan's Memoirs of Paintings (London, 1829),
i. 295, in the possession of Mr. Edward Gray in London.
NOTE CIII.

Page 105.

See Passavant, iii. 111. This supposition rests, however,
only on a notice by Morelli (ii. 120) of an anonymous picture.
No one has seen the picture, and it is therefore very probable
that the painting sold by Valati was a speculation based on
this ikct. It may possibly have been an old copy of the same
date. Such is the opinion of Dr. G. G. Parthey at Berlin.
NOTE CIV.

Page 107.

Valery, Voyages en Italie (Brussels, 1843), p. 461.
NOTE CV.

Page 107.

Passavant, iii. 115.
NOTE CVI.

Page 108.

Incomprehensibly enough, in the catalogue of the Pinakothek, this picture is entered as the portrait of Eaphael, a
supposition which is based entirely on a false interpretation
of the words of Vasari (cf. Le Vite, p. 548), i ed a Bindo
Altoviti fece il ritratto sno dove era giovane.' Bottari wa
R

RAPHAEL SANTI.

242

the first who was deceived by the equivocal expression of
Vasari; he was followed by Raphael Morghen, who, in his
engraving of the picture, designated it as a portrait of
Raphael, and even by Rumohr, the profound investigator of
art; but the error was rectified in a letter published at
Venice and Florence by the Cavaliere Tommaso Puccini, and
subsequently by Wicar, Missirini, Fea, Moreni, and Ernst
Forster. King Louis I. of Bavaria, as crown prince, purchased the magnificent picture in 1808 for 350 zechins from
the Altoviti family in Florence. Cf. Deutsches Museum
(1864), No. 19, p. 692-693.
NOTECVIL

Page 108.

This picture was at any rate some time ago still in the
possession of Mr. R. J. Mackintosh, who purchased it at the sale
of Samuel Rogers's collection, and kept it in a street out of
St. James's in London. According to the latest information,
however, the collection of Mr. Mackintosh no longer exists.
NOTE CVIIL

Page 109.

For details, see Passavant, i. 213-215 ; ii. 150-152 ; iii.
116, 118.
NOTE CIX.

Page 110.

Yon Savigny, Geschichte des romischen Rechts im Mittelalter, iii. 624.
NOTE CX.

Page 110.

Passavant, i. 196.
NOTE CXI.

Page 111.

Von Rumohr, Ueber Rafael, p. 103.

APPENDIX,
NOTE CXII.

243

Page 113.

Cf. with this Vischer's ^sthetik, ii. 480 : < Das Mittelalter
ist in Darstellung von Thieren ausserst schwaeh, wahrend
selbst die unreife orientalische Phantasie im Alterthum es
darin schon weit brachte; auch ein Eafael hat noch wenig
Thierformsinn und macht schlechtere Pferde als selbst die
alterthiimlich hart gezeichneten in den alten etruskischen
Grabern, an denen doch selbst die schwierigsten Theile des
Fusses . . . schon mit einem Verstandniss gegeben sind,
welches zeigt, wie viel Sinn fur. diese edle, ihrem eigenen
Charakter so verwandte Thiergattung die alten Volker hatten.'
(Cf. ibid. iii. 3, 658.)
NOTE CXIII.

Page 116.

Von Eumohr, p. 123.
NOTE CXIV. Page 117.
See Grenzboten von 1863, No. 27, p. 32. Whether Campori
is a marquis, as I have styled him according to my authority,
I cannot assert with any certainty. There is no marquis on
the title of the Italian paper I have since received.
NOTE CXY.

Page 119.

Goethe's works (1840), xxxi. 41-42.
NOTE CXVL

Page 119.

Ibid, xxiii. 174.
NOTE CXVII.

Page 120.

There is a thorough explanation of these in Waagen's
pamphlet, Die Cartons v6n Eafael, in besonderer Beziehung
B 2

244

EAPHAEL SANTI.

auf die nach denselben gewirkten Teppiche in der Eotunde
des koniglichen Museums zu Berlin. (Berlin, 1860.)
NOTE CXVIIL

Page 123.

Vischer, ^Esthetik, iii. 1, 157 ; 3, 622, 628, et seq.
NOTE CXIX.

Page 124.

Le Vite, p. 551.
NOTE CXX.

Page 125.

Grenzboten von 1863, No. 27, p. 29.
NOTECXXI.

Page 126.

The work has passed through many editions; the first
appeared at Venice in 1528 ; another at Lyons in 1553; a third,
incomplete, appeared again at Venice in 1593, and one in
Padua in 1733.
NOTE CXXIL

Page 127.

His complete works were published at Venice in four
volumes in 1729; separate volumes had already appeared
much earlier at different places.
NOTE CXXIII.

Page 127.

Passavant, ii. 292-293; iii. 132-133.
NOTE CXXIV.

Page 128.

Ibid. iii. 180-181.
NOTE CXXV.

Page 133.

Vischer, ^Esthetik, iii. 3, 717, 71ft

APPENDIX.
NOTECXXVI.

245

Page 135.

Cf. Christliches Kunstblatt (1864), No. 2, p. 22-23.
NOTECXXVII.

Page 135.

Goethe's works (1840), xxiv. 172-173.
NOTECXXVIII.

Page 136.

Le Vite, p. 554-555. These paintings, which are now
much injured and retouched by Carlo Maratti, are described
in detail in Grimm's Leben Michel Angelo (2nd edition,
Hanover, 1864), pp. 316-322. The paintings consist of ten
triangular compartments, two great ceiling paintings (the
' Council of the Gods' and the ' Marriage of Cupid and
Psyche '), and fourteen Amorini in the lunettes between the
arches. There is a paper also in the Eecensionen und
Mittheilungen liber bildende Kunst (Vienna, 1864, No. 34,
pp. 265-368), by Fr. W. Unger, entitled, < Eafael's Amor und
Psyche in der Farnesina,' which appears worthy of notice,
because it is here shown that Eaphael in no wise treated the
subject as a fable, in the spirit of Apulejus, but allegorically, in the spirit of the ancient mythology, that is, as a
struggle between earthly and heavenly love (Venus and
Cupid).
NOTECXXIX.

Page 138.

Cf. Passavant, i. 230-233.
NOTE CXXX.

Page 138.

Lettere Pitt. xvi. 213.
NOTE CXXXI.

Page 139.

Goethe's Werke (1840), xxxiii. 119.

RAPHAEL SANTI.

246

NOTE CXXXII.

Page 139.

Nagler, Eafael als Mensch und Ktinstler (Munich, 1836),
p. 159.
NOTE CXXXIIL Page 140.
Von Eumohr, Ueber Eafael und sein Verhaltniss zu den
Zeitgenossen (Berlin and Stettin, 1831), p. 120.
NOTE CXXXIV.

Page 140.

Cf. Eecensionen und Mittheilungen liber bildende Kunst
(Vienna, 1862), No. 9, p. 154-159, in which I erroneously
stated that Mr. Du Boulay purchased the picture in 1855
from the son of a Signore Landucci, who had died at
Florence; the old Landucci, however, died at Pescia, and
the picture was not taken to Florence till after his death,
when Du Boulay at once purchased it, so that it was not at
all known there. This interesting question is also thoroughly
discussed by Euland in his paper, ' Professor Schaffer on a
copy of Eafael's St. Cecilia,' in the c Fine Arts Quarterly
Eeview' (London, May 1864), pp. 346-358.
NOTE CXXXV.

Page 140.

Ibid. No. 11, p. 187-188.
NOTECXXXVI.

Page 141.

Passavant, iii. 124.
NOTE CXXXVII.

Page 141.

Nagler, p. 160.
NOTE CXXXVIII.

Page 142.

Goethe's Werke (1840), xxxi. 41-42.

APPENDIX.
NOTE CXXXIX.

247

Page 143.

Passavant, iii. 188-189.
NOTECXL.

Page 144.

Le Vite, p. 502.
NOTE CXLI.

Page 144.

Visconti (Istoria del Eitrovamento degli Spogli Mortali di
Eaffaello Sanzio [Eome, 1833], p. 80), has discovered this
engraving in the Corsini Gallery in Eome, and by this
rectified the confusion made by Pietro Ferrerio (Eaccolta dei
Palazzi di Eoma, Tav. 15), Sandrart, Comolli, and others,
between the Eaphael palace and that of Giovanni Battista
Branconio d'Aquila.
NOTE CXLII.

Page 145.

Passavant, iii. 192-194.
NOTE CXLIII.

Page 146.

NOTE CXLIV.

Page 147.

Ibid. ii. 443.
Guhl, Kiinstlerbriefe, i. 131.
NOTE CXLV.

Page 148.

Bartsch, Peintre Graveur> xiv. No. 534.
NOTECXLVL

Passavant, i. 235-237.

Page 148.

Guhl, i. 124-126.

N O T E C X L VII.

Page 149.

Agosto Frate Giocondo was sub-architect of St. Peter's from

2*8

RAPHAEL SANTI.

1514 to 1518; and, besides him, Raphael had an associate m
Giuliano, and subsequently in Antonio da San Gallo,

NOTE CXLYIII.

Page 149.

Guhl, Kunstlerbriefe, i. 128-129.
NOTECXLIX.

Page 150.

Ibid. I. 133-134.
NOTE CL.

Page 151.

See Passavant's Latin original, i. 549.
NOTE CLI.

Page 152.

Guhl, Kunstlerbriefe, i. 135-145, and Daniele Francesconi,
Conjettura che una lettera creduta di Baldassare Castiglione
sia di Raffaello d' Urbino (Florence, 1799).
NOTE CLII.

Page 154.

Vasari, in his life of Fra Giocondo, describes Raphael's
bold proceeding.

Cf. Le Vite, p. 699.

NOTE CLIII.
Le Vite, p. 553.

Page 155.

NOTE CLIV.

Page 156,

Passavant, ii. 452, 453, 457.
NOTE CLV.

Ibid. i. 253, 254.

Page 157.

APPENDIX.
NOTE CLVI.

249

Page 157,

Vischer, iEsthetik, i n . i. p. 326.
NOTE CLVIL

Page 158.

Lettere Pittor., vol. v. No. 5, p. 245.
NOTECLVIII.

Page 158.

The Penny Magazine of July 17, 1841, has a copy of this
in a woodcut.
NOTECLIX.

Page 158.

Cavaceppi, Eaccolta d' antiche Statue, plate i. 44 ; and Passavant, ii. 438-440.
NOTE CLX.

Page 158.

Passavant, iii. 33-34, and 183-184.
NOTE CLXI.

Page 158.

Muller, Ein Kupferstich von Eafael (Dtisseldorf, 1860).
NOTE CLXII.

Page 160.

i

Le Yite, p. 549. Avendo dunque veduto Eaffaello lo andare nelle stampe d' Alberto Durero, volonteroso ancor egli di
mostrare quel che in tale arte poteva, fece studiare Marco
Antonio Bolognese in questa pratica infinamente.,
(Cf.
Nagler, Kimstlerlexikon, xii. 207.)
NOTECLXIIL

Page 162.

Dolce, Dialogo della Pittura (styled 1' Aretina, because P .
Aretino furnished Dolce with the materials for it) (Venice,
1557-8), p. 24.

250

RAPHAEL SANTI.
NOTE CLXIY.

Page 162.

Passavant, vol. ii. Nos. 82, 83, p. 475.
NOTE CLXY.

Page 163.

Yon Kumohr, Italienische Forschungen, iii. 117.
NOTE CLXVI.

Page 166.

Notizie Inedite di Eaffaello da Urbino.
1863, No. 27, p. 27-28.
NOTE CLXYII.

Grenzboten von

Page 166.

Cf. the letters from Goro Gheri in Eome to Baldassare
Turini in Florence, in Gaye's Carteggio inedito d' Artisti dei
secoli 14-16, vol. ii. Nos. 90, 91. (Passavant, ii. 139-140.)
NOTE CLXYIII.

Page 167.

Le Yite (Yita di Giulio Romano), p. 759.
NOTE CLXIX.

Page 167.

Andre Felibien, Entretiens sur les Yies et les Ouvrages des
plus excellents Peintres anciens et modernes (Paris, 1666),
ii. 335.
NOTE CLXX.

Page 167.

Passavant, ii. 317-320.
NOTE CLXXI.

Page 168.

Yon Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen, iii. 129, and Drei
Reisen nach Italien, p. 78.
NOTE CLXXII.
Le Yite, p. 554.

Page 169.

APPENDIX.

251

NOTE CLXXIII. Page 169.
Thus it stands in the catalogue of the Dresden Gallery in
1862, p. 131; but Winckelmann in a letter to Berendis,
September 17,1754, states the sum to have been 5,000/., without the cost of transport. Cf. Passavant, i. 340.
NOTE CLXXIY.

Page 169.

Bottiger, Artistisches Notizenblatt (1825), No. 24.
NOTE CLXXV.

Page 169.

Ibid. (1826), No. 1.
NOTE CLXXYI.

Page 170.

Vischer, ^Esthetik, iii. 3, 619.
NOTE CLXXYII. Page 172.
I have in these remarks endeavoured to give a short
resume of an article well worthy of notice, entitled, ' Die
Kiinstlerische Anordnung von Rafael's Sixtinischer Madonna,'
contributed by Riegel to the Morgenblatt of 1864, No. 24,
pp. 558-563. A woodcut which is there given shows the
mathematical laws which he has followed with so much
exactness.
NOTE CLXXYIII.

Page 172.

Yischer, ^Esthetik, iii. 3, 619.
NOTE CLXXIX.
i

Page 172.

Heucking, Die Sixtinische Madonna. In ihrer sittlichen
Wirkung ausgelegt und erklart.' (Petersburg, 1862.)

RAPHAEL SANTI.

252

NOTE CLXXX.

Page 174.

Blatter fur literarische Unterhaltung (Leipsic, 1863), No. 20,
p. 370.
NOTE CLXXXI.

Page 177.

Goethe's Werke (1840), xxiv. 170-171.
NOTE CLXXXII.

Page 178.

Ibid. (1840), xxxi. 43-49,* 'Ueber Christus und die zwolf
Apostel.'
NOTE CLXXXIII.

Page 179.

Ibid. xxiv. 167.
NOTE CLXXXIV.

Page 181.

Le Vite, p. 560.
NOTE CLXXXV.

Page 181.

Pungileoni, Elogio storico di Eaffaello Santi, p. 246, relates,
according to the statement of Melchior Missirini, that
Raphael was suddenly summoned to the Pope, on account of
some affair of importance, and in consequence arrived very
much heated; that he then had a long conversation with him
in a drafty room, and caught his fatal illness from the chill he
then received.
NOTECLXXXYI.

Page 181.

Le Vite, p. 554.
NOTE CLXXXYII.

Page 182.

Grenzboten von 1863, No. 27, p. 20. Pungileoni also, in
his Elogio storico di Raffaello Santi, p. 246, speaks of a fever,

APPENDIX.

253

which, ' in pochi di,' ended fatally, in spite of all the remedies
applied. Vasari's editors (Le Monnier's Florentine edition of
1846 ; Trieste edition, p. 560, section 2, note 2) say that
his illness lasted fifteen days, and that during this time he
received from all sides, and even from the Pope himself, the
warmest proofs of the most hearty sympathy.

NOTE CLXXXVIII.

Page 184.

Le Vite, p. 561.
NOTECLXXXIX.

Page 185.

Passavant, i. 325-327.
NOTE CXC.

Page 186.

Le Vite, p. 560.
NOTE CXCI.

Page 188.

Braun, Disputa, p. 154.*
NOTE CXCII.

Page 188.

Ibid. p. 154.
NOTE CXCIIL

Page 189.

Yischer, JEsthetik, iii. 713, 714.
NOTE CXCIV.

Page 195.

Macaulay's History of England, i. 44.
NOTE CXCV.

Page 196.

Vischer, JEsthetik, iii. 3, 712, 713.

254

RAPHAEL SAXTI.

NOTE CXCVI. Page 197.
Yischer, iEsthetik, iii. p. 717.
NOTE CXCVII.

Page 199.

Especial stress must be laid upon this fact, for too often the
influence of the antique upon Raphael's art is represented as
too sudden and direct; he felt its influence, however, in the
atmosphere of the entire age of the Renaissance, in poets and
writers, such as Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Frezzi (the author
of the l Quadriregio'), Lorenzo Valla, Flavio Biondo, Bernardo
Ruccellai (the first Roman antiquarian), and many others; he
felt its influence above all, as regards plastic art, in the purity
of the Florentine form, which already contained in itself the
spirit of the antique, and from which Raphael drew, before he
had reached the fount of the antique.
NOTE CXCVIII. Page 201.
Cf. Gruyer, Raphael et l'Antiquite (Paris, 1864), i.
224-225; ii. 409-419. I will not assert that Raphael
reached Phidias's ideal of beauty; perhaps he approaches
closer to Praxiteles than to Phidias, who has ever been
enthroned in solitary grandeur. But, in spite of this, Gruyer
was right in his assertion ; for, judging by what later classic art
had until then produced, Raphael alone and no other can be
placed by the side of Phidias as the representative of modern
art. Still the question whether it will ever be possible to
bring Phidias's true ideal of beauty into harmony with our
modern knowledge is perhaps connected with that other
question, whether a great art-epoch is at all to be expected oi
no. Those who proclaim a still higher future for the human
race will answer this latter question in the affirmative.

APPENDIX.
NOTE CXCIX.

255

Page 202.

Goethe's Werke (1840), xxx. 467.
NOTE CC.

Page 202.

Von Schadow, Ueber den Einfluss des Christenthums auf
die bildende Kunst. A Lecture (Dusseldorf, 1842), p. 6.
NOTE CCI.

Page 206.

These are Overbeck's own words in a letter written by
him from Aricia, near Rome, on September 3, 1857, to the
engraver Ludy, at Berlin. Both designs were made by
Overbeck at an early period for a Counsellor Reimer (the
bookseller or his brother) at Berlin, as companion pictures,
and Ludy engraved them in 1859, with the permission of the
artist, for the publisher Manz at Ratisbon, in cartoon fashion,
or, as the French call it, ' maniere blonde ou allemande.' Overbeck himself sets especial value on the ' Expulsion of Hagar.'
This composition was originally in a triangular form, and this
first original is in the possession of a Miss Auguste Klein; in
the design for Reimer it is in a square form. Ludy, who is
well qualified for the task, has engraved many of Overbeck's
paintings, the greater part of which have been published by
Schulgen and Schwann in Paris. All his works are distinguished by great depth of feeling and elegance.
NOTE CCII.

Page 207.

Vischer, iEsthetik, iii. 3, 750.
NOTE CCIIL
Ibid. p. 751.

Page 207.

256

RAPHAEL SANTI.
NOTECCIV.

Page 209.

Yischer, iEsthetik, iii. p. 713.
NOTE CCV.

Page 210.

Die Illustrirte Welt (Stuttgart, 1864), part i. pp. 4-7. ' Das
Juwel der Dresdener Gallerie/
NOTE CCVI.
Vischer, iEsthetik, ii. 391.

Page 217.

INDEX
Adoration of the Kings, the, 14
Advance in Art, 33, 34
Ariosto, Lodovico, 128
Attila, the, 77, 112, etseq.

Deliverance of St. Peter, the, 112,
135
Disputa del S. Sacramento, 60, et seq.,
74, 75, et seq,
Doria, Andrea, 43

Baccio della Porta, 50, et seq.
Baldassare Peruzzi, 157
Baldassare Turini da Pescia, 129,
182
Bearing of the Cross, the, 48
Bembo, Pietro, 43, 58, 127
Bibbiena, Bernardo Divizio da, 43,
58, 129, 183
ibbiena, Maria di, 100, et seq.
Bramante, 51, 143, 156
Branconio, Giovanni Battista, 129,
182

Engraving, attempts at, 159 et seq.
Entombment of Christ, 46
Fornarina, la, 91, 92, et seq.} 183
Erancia, Francesco, 42, 103, 104
Gralatea, the, 137
Gruidobaldo, Duke, 43
Heliodorus, the, 112
Inghirami, Tommaso, 130

Calcagnini, Epigram by, 152
Cartoons, the, 120
Castiglione, Baldassare, 43,68,126,
149, 185
Cecilia, the St., 139, et seq., 209
Ciarla, Simone, 24, 100, 148
Clement VIII., 129
Coronation of the Virgin, the, 180
Correggio, 10, 13, 197

Julius II., his designs, 55. His
views, 71, 193. Portrait, 105.
Influence on art, 115, et seq,
Leo X., 116. His court, 126
Leonardo da Vinci's influence on
Baphael, 36. Compared with
Eaphael, 53, 174,197
S

258

IN

Loggie, painted "by Eaphael, 118,
et seq.
Madonna della Sedia, 162
Madonna di San Sisto, 168, et seq. 209
Magliano, painting at La, 125
Mannerism, 37
Massaccio, 34, et seq.
Mass of Bolsena, the, 110, et seq.,
135
Medici, Giuliano de', 43,132
Giulio de', 128
Lorenzo de', his portrait, 132
Michael Angelo's cartoon at Florence, 32. His Pieta, 47. Compared with Eaphael, 53, 88, 89,
197. Influence on Eaphael, 78,
79, 141. Personal relation with
Eaphael, 82, 83. Typical character of his works, 196
Modern School of Italian Painting,
35
Mozart, parallel with, 4, 5, 90
Parnassus, the, 73, 135
Penni, Francesco, 119, 120, 167
Perugino, 24. His Birth of Christ,
26. His Eesurrection of Christ,
26
Peter's, Church of St., 145, et seq.
Pinturricchio, 25, 30, et seq.
Portrait of Eaphael, 103
Prophet Isaiah, the, 107
Eaphael, parallel with Mozart,
5-14. His family and genealogy,
21. Birth, 22. First instruction from his father, 23. His
early attempts, 23. First teachers
in painting, 24. Pupil of

Perugino, 24. His return to
Urbino, 27. Paints his Nicholas of Tolentico, 27. A crucifixion, ib. His return to Perugia,
28. List of works completed
there, ib. He quits Perugino's
studio, 29. Paints the Sposalizio,
ib. His return to Urbino, 30.
Paintings executed there, ib.
Employed by Pinturicchio, ib.
His attraction to Florence, 31,
et seq. Influenced by Massaccio,
35. By Leonardo da Vinci, 36.
His three stages of style, 38.
His Madonna del Granduca, 39.
Early works at Florence, ib. Eeturn to Perugia, 40. Paints the
altarpiece now at Blenheim, ib.
Eeturns to Florence, 41. His
society there, ib. List of portraits
belonging to this period, 42.
Acquaintance with Francesco
Francia, ib. He repairs to Urbino, 43. Paints the Three
Graces, 44, et seq. The HolyFamily for Domenico Canigiani,
46. The Entombment of Christ,
46, et seq. Eeturns to Florence,
49. Acquaintance with Baccio
della Porta, 51. Summoned to
Eome, ib. Decorates the apartments of the Vatican, 574, et seq.
Eaphael's influence, 85. Life in
Eome, 87. Intimacy with La
Fornarina, 91. Portrait of La
Fornarina, 92. Eaphael's sonnets, 96, et seq. Betrothal with
Maria di Bibbiena, 100, et seq.
His paintings in Eome, 105, 106.
He pa nts the Stanza d' Eliodoro

INDEX.
109. He paints the Loggie, 118,
et seq. Paints the cartoons, 120,
121. Decorates the Stanza dell'
Incendio, 122. Designs for the
Sala di Costantino, 123. Influences round Raphael, 126, et
seq. Charm of Raphael's portraits, 133, et seq. He paints the
Prophets and Sibyls, 134, 135.
Paints the Galatea, 137. The
St. Cecilia, 139, et seq. His
architectural works, 143, 155.
Appointed architect of St. Peter's,
145. Studies Roman antiquities,
151. His engravings, 159, et
seq. He paints the Madonna
della Sedia, the Madonna della
Tenda, and Lo Spasimo, 163. The
Madonna diS.Sisto,l 68, e ^ . 209.
He paints the Transfiguration, 177,
178. His designs for ' Christ and
the Twelve Apostles/ 179. The

259
'Coronation of the Virgin,' 180.
His illness and death, 181, et seq.

Sala di Costantino, 123
Sala della Segnatura, 57, 124
Sangallo, Antonio di, 41
Giuliano di, ib.
Sannazaro, Jacopo, 128
Sansovino, Andrea, 41
School of Athens, 67, 77
Sibyls, the, 136
Sonnets, 96, et seq.
Spasimo, Lo, 163, 164
Stanza d' Eliodoro, 109
Stanza dell' Incendio, 122
Tebaldeo, Antonio, 128
Three Graces, the, 44
Transfiguration, the, 177, 178
Udine, Giovanni da, 119, 120

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