,yC-NRLF B 3 bOT bDS d-'Ccito oviv«*i»^ r' ■-'''' MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR EDITED BY - - T. LEMAN HARE RAPHAEL 1483—1520 "Masterpieces in Colour" Series Artist. BELLINI. BOTTICELLL BOUCHER, BURNE-JONES. CARLO DOLCI. CHARDIN. CONSTABLE. COROT. DA VINCL DELACROIX. DtTRER. FRA ANGELICO. FRA FILIPPO LIPPL FRAGONARD. FRANZ HALS. GAINSBOROUGH GREUZE. HOGARTH. HOLBEIN. HOLMAN HUNT. INGRES. LAWRENCE. LE BRUN, VIG£E. LEIGHTON. LUINL MANTEGNA. MEMLINC. MILLAIS. MILLET. MURILLO. PERUGINO. RAEBURN. RAPHAEL. REMBRANDT. REYNOLDS. ROMNEY. ROSSETTI RUBENS. SARGENT. TINTORETTO TITIAN. TURNER. VAN DYCK. VELAZQUEZ. WATTEAU. WATTS. WHISTLER. Author. George Hay. Henky B. Binns. C. Haldane MacFalu A. Lys Baldry. George Hay, Paul G. Konody, C. Lewis Hind. Sidney Allnutt. M. W. B ROCKWELL. Paul G. Konody, H. E. A. FuRST. James Mason. Paul G. Konody. C. Haldane MacFalu Edgcumbe Staley. Max Rothschild. Alys Eyre Macklin, C. Lewis Hind. S. L. Bensusan. Mary E. Coleridge. A. J. Finberg. S. L. Bensusan. C. Haldane MacFall A. Lys Baldry. James. Mason. Mrs. Arthur Bell. W. H. J. & J. C. Weale. A. Lys Baldry. Percy M. Turner. S. L. Bensusan. Sklwvn Brinton. James L. Caw. Paul G. Konody. Josef Israels. S. L. Bensusan. C. Lewis Hind. LUCIKN PiSSARRO. S. L. Bensusan. T. Martin Wood. S. L. Bensusan. S. L. Bensusan. C. Lewis Hind. Percy M. Turner. S. L. Bensusan. C. Lewis Hind. W. LoFTUs Hare. T. Martin Wood Others in Preparation, PLATE I.— THE ANSIDEI MADONNA. Frontispiece (In the National Gallery, London) Better than any other picture by Raphael, this important altar- piece shows the precociousness of Raphael's genius, for it was painted at Perugia in 1506, when the master had scarcely passed into the twenty-third year of his life. He had then just returned from Florence, but, probably to humour his patrons, the Ansidei family, he reverted in this picture once again to the formal manner of his second master, Perugino. The "Ansidei Madonna" has the distinction of being the most costly picture at the National Gallery — it was purchased in 1885 from the Duke of Marlborough for ;g70,000. RAPHAEL BY PAUL G. KONODY ® ® ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT REPEODUCTIONS IN COLOUR LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO. U.' r^ 1^ 3/^1^2 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plate I. The Ansidei Madonna . . Frontispiece In the National Gallery, London Page II. The Madonna del Gran Duca ... 14 In the Pitti Palace, Florence III. The Madonna della Sedia ... 24 In the Pitti Palace, Florence IV. "La Belle Jardiniere" .... 34 In the Louvre V. The Madonna of the Tower ... 40 In the National Gallery, London VI. Pope Julius II 50 In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence VII. Putto with Garland 60 In the Academy of St. Luca, Rome VIII. Portrait of Raphael ... . 70 In the U£Gzi Gallery, Florence vu I "and I tell you that to paint one beauti- j[\^ ful woman, I should need to see several beautiful women, and to have you with me to choose the best," wrote Raphael, then at the zenith of his fame and good fortune, to his life-long friend Count Baldassare Castiglione, who — the io RAPHAEL ideal courtier himself— has given the world that immortal monument of Renaissance culture, the Book of the Courtier. In pen- ning these lines the prince of painters intended, perhaps, no more than a pretty- compliment to one who was himself a model of courtesy and graceful speech, but the words would gain deep significance if picture were substituted for womany and if Castiglione were taken to signify the personification of intellect and learning. For the beauty of Raphael's art, which in the course of four centuries has lost none of its hold upon the admiration of mankind, is distilled from the various elements of beauty contained in the art that had gone before him and was being created around him; and in choosing the best, at least as far as idea and conception are concerned, he was guided by the deepest thinkers and keenest intellects of what were then the world's greatest centres of culture. RAPHAEL II Raphael was, indeed, born under a happy constellation. He was not a giant of intellect, nor an epoch-making genius ; as Michelangelo said of him, he owed his art less to nature than to study; but he was born at a time when two centuries of gradual artistic development had led / up to a point where an artist was needed / to gather up the diverging threads and/ bring the movement to a culmination, which/ will stand for all times as a standard o^ perfection. Advantages of birth and early surroundings, charm of appearance and disposition which made him a favourite wherever he went, receptivity, adaptability, and application, and above all an early and easy mastery of technique, were combined in Raphael to lead him to this achievemenii The smooth unclouded progress of his life from recognition to fame, from prosperity to affluence, is not the turbulent way of genius. Genius walks a sad and lonely 12 RAPHAEL path. Michelangelo, the turbulent spirit, morose and dissatisfied, Lionardo da Vinci, pursuing his high ideals without a thought of worldly success until his lonely old age sees him expatriated and contemplating the fruitlessness of all his labours — these men of purest genius have little in common with the pliant courtier Raphael, the head him- self of a little court of faithful followers. The story goes that Michelangelo, in the bitterness of his spirit, when meeting his happy rival at the head of his usual army of some fifty dependants on his way to the Papal court, addressed him with the words "You walk like the sheriff with his posse coTnitatus." And Raphael, quick at re- partee, retorted "And you, like an execu- tioner going to the scaffold." Whether the \ anecdote be true or not, it marks the differ- i ence between the course of talent — albeit I the rarest talent— and that of genius. What are the qualities of Raphael's art PLATE II.— THE MADONNA DEL GRAN DUCA (In the Pitti Palace, Florence) This picture, remarkable for the effective simplicity of its design and for the purity of the Virgin's face, derives the name by vyhich it is commonly knovyn from the fact that it was bought in 1799 by the Grand Duke Ferdinand III. from a poor widow, and held by him in such esteem that he would never part from it and always took it with him on his travels. At one time it was actually credited with the power of working miracles. It is one of the first works of Raphael's Florentine period, and now hangs in the Pitti Palace, Florence. RAPHAEL 15 that have carried his fame unsullied through the ages and made him the most popular, the most admired, of all painters? The greatest of the primitives, and of the later masters Velazquez, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Watteau, to mention only a few of the brightest beacons in the realm of art, have at some time or other been eclipsed and held in slight esteem. Raphael alone escaped the inconstancy of popular favour ; he was set up as an idol before he left the world to mourn his untimely death, and in the course of the years the world's idola- trous worship was extended even to the feeble handiwork of his assistants, which often passed under his name. Only within the memory of living men did this blind and indiscriminating worship lead to a re- action as indiscriminating. But this re- action was confined to a comparatively small circle of aesthetically inclined art enthusiasts; and to-day, when the more i6 RAPHAEL scientific methods of criticism have suc- ceeded in sifting the wheat from the chaff — the master's own work from the factory- like production of his bottega — he has been reinstated in all his former glory. Con- temptuous hostility to Raphael's art has ceased to be a fashionable pose. The frank acknowledgment of the perfection of this art is no longer stayed by the con- sciousness of the harm done by that im- perfect imitation of the Raphaelic code of beauty, which has been the result of all academic teaching in Europe since the founding of the Prix de Rome. Beauty, formal beauty, pure and faultless, must appeal to everybody; and Raphael means to us the perfection of beauty — such beauty as lies in rhythm, balance, colour, form, and execution. It is a calculated beauty, the lucid, unambiguous expression of an absolutely normal, well-balanced mind assisted by an unerring hand; hence it is RAPHAEL 17 intelligible to everybody without that uncon- scious mental effort which is needed for the understanding of an art of greater emotional intensity. It is of the very essence of art that it should express an emotion ; a picture which is merely imitative without holding a hint of what the artist felt at the time of creating it, ceases to be a work of art, even if it represents a subject beautiful in itself. On the other hand, an ugly subject may be raised to sublime art by emotional statement ; but this emotion is of necessity more complex and more difficult to under- stand than that simplest of all emotions, the pleasure caused by the contemplation of beauty. This accounts for the common fallacy that art and beauty are indissolubly connected, and for the favouritism shown by all the successive generations to Raphael whose brush was wedded to beauty in the classic sense, and whose art knew nothing of the beauty of character. i8 RAPHAEL But beauty alone does not constitute Raphael's greatness, or Bouguereau and many- other modern academic painters would have to be accounted great instead of being merely dull and insipid. Raphael developed to its utmost power of expressiveness the art of space-composition, the secret of which was the heritage of the Umbrian painters. What space-composition means cannot be better defined than it has been by Mr. Berenson: "Space-composition differs from ordinary composition in the first place most obviously in that it is not an arrangement y to be judged as extending only laterally, or )\ up and down on a flat surface, but as ex- tending inwards in depth as well. It is composition in three dimensions, and not in two, in the cube, not merely on the sur- face. . . . Painted space-composition opens out the space it frames in, puts boundaries only ideal to the roof of heaven. All that it uses, whether the forms of the natural RAPHAEL 19 landscape, or of grand architecture, or even of the human figure, it reduces to be its ministrants in conveying a sense of untram- melled, but not chaotic spaciousness. In such pictures, how freely one breathes — as if a load had just been lifted from one's breast; how refreshed, how noble, how potent one feels ; again, how soothed ; and still again, how wafted forth to abodes of far-away bliss!" This sense of space and depth is achieved by methods which have nothing in common with our modern art of creating the illusion of what is called "atmosphere" — not by the "losing and finding" of contours, not by the application of optical theories, such as the zone of interchanging rays which dis- solves all hard outlines, nor by the blurring and fogging of the distance. Space-composi- "]tion in the sense in which it was practised I by Raphael is closely akin to the art of I architecture in its appeal to our emotions* 20 RAPHAEL As an illustrator, again, Raphael was un- equalled as regards clear, direct, measured statement of all that is essential to the immediate grasping of the idea or in- ' cident depicted. The first glance at one of Raphael's works, whether it be a small panel picture or a monumental fresco, re- veals its whole purport, and that in a manner so complete and lucid and convinc- ing as could not be achieved by any other method of expression. With infallible sure- ness he invariably found the shortest way for the harmonious statement of idea, form, and emotion, which in his work are always found in perfect balance and so completely j permeated by each other as to constitute an indissoluble trinity. Another reason for Raphael's powerful appeal — and in this he is perhaps the most typical child of his period — is that his art unites in one majestic current the two greatest movements of thought which have RAPHAEL 21 ever fired the imagination of civilised jr Europe; classic antiquity and Christian ./ ^ faith, when treated by Raphael's brush, 1^ jf cease to be incompatible and live side by 7;^' side in that measured harmony which is the hall-mark of his art. Christianity is pre- i sented to us in the glorious classic garb of Sthe old world, and the myth and philo- Isophy of the ancients are brought into inti- imate relationship with Christian teaching. He infuses new blood and life into the stones of ancient Greece and Rome— un- like Mantegna who had remained cold and classic in his relief-like reconstructions of antiquity; just as he accentuates the human emotional side of the Madonna and Child motif by discarding all hieroglyphic symbolism and setting before our eyes the intimate link of love that connects mother and babe. Almost imperceptibly his cupids are transformed into child angels, and the Jehovah of his "Vision of Ezekiel" has 22 RAPHAEL more in common with Olympian Jove than with the mediaeval conception of the Lord of Heaven. Just as Timoteo Viti, Perugino, Fra Bartolommeo, Lionardo da Vinci, Masaccio, Michelangelo, and Sebastiano del Piombo (who imparted to him something of the glow of Venetian colouring), had been the I sources from which Raphael drew his \ knowledge of technique, colour, composi- tion, and all the elements of pictorial style, so the humanists had paved his way as re- gards the intellectual aspect of his art. His marvellous faculty of rapid assimila- tion enabled him, on the one hand, to appropriate whatever he found worthy of , imitation in his precursors and contem- ' poraries, and thus to complete his techni- cal equipment at an age at which it was given to few to have achieved mastery ; whilst, on the other hand, his clear in- tellect, aided by the not entirely unmerce- PLATE lU.— THE MADONNA DELLA SEDIA (In the Pitti Palace, Florence) The Madonna "of the Chair," one of the most characteristic and deservedly popular of Raphael's numerous versions of the Virgfin and Child motif, belongs to the master's full maturity, and was painted during his sojourn in Rome, at the time when he w^as occupied with the stupendous task of decorating the Stanze of the Vatican. It would be difficult to find in the whole history of art a more pleasing solution of the problem presented by a figure com- position in the round. The picture is now in the Pitti Palace, Florence. RAPHAEL 25 nary desire to please his patrons, helped him to carry out with triumphant success the ideas evolved by the keenest thinkers of his time. To doubt that the general idea, and perhaps a good many of the details, of such a stupendous work as the fresco decoration of the Stanze at the Vati- can, had originated in Raphael's head, is not to detract from his greatness. He was a boy in his early teens when he entered ^ his first master's bottega. He was a youth of twenty-five when he started on his great task; and the intervening years had been so completely filled with the study of his craft and with the execution of important commissions, that it is impossible to be- lieve he could have found much leisure for book-learning. And such learning was in- dispensable for the conception of that elabo- rate scheme with all its historical allusions and allegorical imagery. The wonder is that Raphael could so completely enter 26 RAPHAEL into the suggestions made to him from various sources, and to weave them into a tissue of immortal beauty. II At the end of the fifteenth century the rule of the Duke Federigo of Montefeltre, an enlightened prince who devoted the best of his energy and such time as he could spare from his duties on the battlefield to the patronage of the arts, to the adornment of his noble palace, and to the collecting of priceless manuscripts, paintings, antiques, and works of art of every description, had raised the old city of Urbino to one of the centres of culture and learning, and made the ducal court a gathering-place for the distinguished painters, architects, poets, and humanists who were attracted by the wealth and liberality of this great patron. RAPHAEL 27 Among the less distinguished satellites at- tracted by the sun of Montefeltre was one Giovanni Santi, who had come to Urbino in the middle of the fifteenth century. Though a painter of considerable skill, trained perhaps by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, he found it necessary in the early days of his sojourn at Urbino to supplement his modest income by trading in oil and corn and other commodities, as his father had jdone before him. But his varied accom- plishments soon brought him into promi- nence and secured him a position as court painter and poet. More important than any of the pictures that have come to us from his brush is his famous rhyming chronicle of 23,000 verses in Dantesque measure, in which he glorifies the virtues and exploits of his patron. He was a special favourite of Elisabetta Gonzaga, the youthful spouse of Federigo's son Guidobaldo, whose high esteem for Giovanni is expressed in 28 RAPHAEL a letter in which she informs her sister-in- law of the court painter's death. To this Giovanni Santi and to his wife Magia Ciarla was born on Good Friday, the 28th of March ^ 1483, a son who was destined in the comparatively short span of his life to rise to fame such as has been the share of few mortals. An elder brother and sister of Raphael had died in infancy, and his mother followed them to the grave before he had reached his eighth year. Her place in the paternal home was taken by Bernardina Parte, a goldsmith's daughter, whom Giovanni wedded soon after his first wife's death. From Giovanni Santi's great poem it would appear that he was on terms of friendship and intimacy with some of the greatest masters of the time, such as Melozzo da Forli, Mantegna, Pier dei ^ The wording of Raphael's epitaph, which states that he died on the same day (of the year) on which he was born, has led some writers to the assumption that he was born on April 6, whereas it is merely meant to signify that he was born and died on Good Friday. RAPHAEL 29 Franceschi, and Verrocchio; and it is reasonable to assume that Raphael's earliest art education under his father's guidance f tended towards the development of that peculiar faculty which enabled him later on to seize and assimilate the excellences in the style of the various masters with whom he came in contact. The ease with which his precocious talent absorbed the teaching of his masters became evident when, soon after his father's death, in 1494, from fever contracted in the malarial air of the Mantuan marshland, whither he had gone in the service of Elisabetta Gonzaga, he entered the bottega of Francia's pupil Timoteo Viti (or della Vite), who settled at Urbino in 1495, and whose eminent position among the painters of that city must have suggested to Raphael's guardian — his maternal uncle Simone Ciarla — the de- sirability of placing the youth under such competent tuition. And so thoroughly did ■k 30 RAPHAEL Raphael acquire not only his first master's style, but even such of his mannerisms as the broad shape of hands and feet and the languid turn of the heads, that from such internal evidence Morelli, the originator of the modern method of criticism, was able after more than three centuries of error to disprove Vasari's assertion that Raphael passed straight from his father's workshop into that of Perugino. Timoteo's influence is apparent even in works painted by Raphael at a time when he had come under the spell of the more powerful personality of Perugino, like the " SposaHzio " or " Be- trothal of the Virgin," of 1504, in the Brera Gallery in Milan ; but it is unmistakably in evidence in the three earliest pictures that bear Raphael's name: the "Vision of a Knight," at the National Gallery, the "St. Michael," at the Louvre, and the "Three Graces," at Chantilly. Not only the features which connect this group of pictures with RAPHAEL 31 the style of Timoteo Viti, but the timid . I meticulous execution and the naive stiffness \ of the figures, mark them as works of I Raphael's immature youth. The turn of the century, as we shall see, found Raphael at Perugia, so that the three pictures men- tioned must have been painted before he had attained the age of seventeen. The panel of the " Three Graces," which, by the way, was obviously inspired by an antique cameo, was bought in 1885 by the Due d'Aumale from Lord Dudley's collection for j£25,ooo — surely a price without parallel for a work painted by a lad of sixteen ! A por- trait in chalk of the marvellously gifted, winsome boy by the hand of his first master is preserved at the University Galleries in Oxford. The records of a lawsuit between some members of his family prove that Raphael was still at Urbino in 1499, since in the summer of this year he appeared as a witness 32 RAPHAEL in court. When the verdict was given in the following year, he had already left for Perugia to continue his studies as an assistant of Perugino. Again we find him before long assimilating the style of his new master so successfully and completely that, to use Vasari's words, " His copies cannot be distinguished from the original works of the master, nor can the difference between the performances of Raphael and those of Pietro be discerned with any certainty." Plagiarism in those days did not trouble (the artistic conscience, and it is easy to trace in Raphael's pictures of that period entire groups that are borrowed from the elder master. Thus the ** Crucifixion," painted about 1501 for a church in Citt^ di Castello, and now in the collection of Dr. Ludwig Mond, is obviously based on Perugino's version of the same subject at St. Augus- tine's, Siena, whilst the whole upper part of the Vatican ** Coronation of the Virgin " PLATE IV. -LA BELLE JARDINISRE (In the Louvre) "La Belle Jardiniere" is a magnificent example of Raphael's Florentine style, which came from his being influenced by Leonardo da Vinci when at Florence (see the triang^ilar composition). The Virgin's mantle was probably finished by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio ; other parts — the hands and the feet — are hardly finished ; neverthe- less it is one of the finest, most expressive, and touching Madonnas by the Master. or THE OF iSAtiFofi:^ RAPHAEL 35 is " lifted " from an " Assumption " by Pietro. But this almost literal imitation was only a passing phase, whilst the great lesson of space-composition and the typically Umbrian gift of almost religious fervour in stating the peaceful glory of the Umbrian hill-land, which had been imparted to Raphael at Perugia, remained permanent acquisitions to his art. In 1502 Perugino went back to Florence, and Raphael probably joined Pinturicchio's staff of assistants, though Vasari's statement that he furnished the designs for the latter master's frescoes in the Piccolomini Library at Siena may be dismissed as a fable. During this time Raphael painted his first Madonna pictures, notably the " Conestabile Madonna " (now at St. Petersburg), which is based entirely on Perugino's " Virgin with the Pomegranate," and two panels at the Berlin Museum. The Milan " Sposalizio," in which the young master's personality already 36 RAPHAEL asserts itself through the very marked Ferrarese and Peruginesque influences, was painted in 1504 for the church of St. Fran- cesco at Citt^ di Castello. His early mastery in portraiture is illustrated by his portrait of Perugino at the Borghese Gallery, which is so firm in character and perfect in execution that it could pass for many years as the handiwork of Holbein. . Meanwhile Duke Guidobaldo had returned 1^ to Urbino after the death of his enemy. Pope 1 Alexander VI., and thither Raphael proceeded j in 1504. The little ^*St. George" at the Louvre is a memento of this short visit which terminated in October of the same year, when Raphael, armed with a letter of warmest recommendation from Guidobaldo's sister Giovanna della Rovere to the Gonfaloniere Pier Soderini, left his native town for Florence, then the centre of artistic life, astir with the rivalry between the giants Michelangelo and Lionardo da Vinci. RAPHAEL 37 The young man must have been fairly- bewildered at the multitude of new impres- sions that crowded upon him in the glorious city on the banks of the Arno, with its impos- ing palaces and churches, its seething life and its art so much more virile and monu- mental than the dreamy, almost effeminate art engendered by the soft balmy atmos- phere of Umbria. How he must have re- velled in the contemplation of Masaccio's noble frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel — the training school of generations of painters — which ten years later were echoed in his tapestry cartoons for the Sistine Chapel ! How he must have stood in wonder and amazement before Michelangelo's " David," and have resolved forthwith to devote him- self to a more intimate study of the human form and movement ! The fascination exer- cised upon him by the genius of Lionardo found expression in some of the earliest fruits of Raphael's sojourn in Florence— the 38 RAPHAEL portraits at the Pitti Palace known as "Angelo Doni" and his wife Maddalena Strozzi, who, however, could not possibly have been the model for this reminiscence of Lionardo's " Mona Lisa," since it is known that she was baptized in 1489, whereas Raphael's portrait of 1504 represents a woman of ripe age. In the workshop of the architect Baccio d'Agnolo, which was then a favourite social resort of the younger artists of Florence, the youth from Urbino met on terms of equality such masters as Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Antonio da Sangallo, Sansovino, and Fra Bartolom- meo, who again had a considerable share in the formation of Raphael's style, as may be seen from the " Madonna di Sant' Antonio," now lent to the National Gallery by Mr. Pierpont Morgan who is said to have paid for it the enormous price of j£ioo,ooo. This picture, and the "Ansidei Madonna," which was bought for the National Gallery from PLATE v.— THE MADONNA OF THE TOWER (In the National Gallery, London) This beautiful painting, which the National Gallery owes to the generosity of Miss Eva Mackintosh, who presented it to the nation in 1906, was at one time in the collection of the Due d'Orleans. The late owner was fortunate in securing this unquestionably genuine masterpiece at the Rogers' sale in 1856 for 480 guineas. It was painted about 1512 ; and a copy of it by Sassoferrato is in the Leichtenburg collection in St. Petersburg. RAPHAEL 41 the Duke of Marlborough^s collection for j^JyOjOOO, were painted during a visit to Perugia towards the end of 1505 — the former for the nuns of St. Antony of Padua, in Perugia, and the other for the Ansidei Chapel in the church of San Fiorenzo of the same city. The records of Raphael's movements be- tween 1504 and 1508, when he finally left Florence, are scanty and unreliable. Certain it is that, besides his visit to Perugia, he spent some time at Urbino in 1506, when he painted for Guidobaldo the " St. George " which figured among the gifts taken by Castiglione to Henry VII. of England, from whom the Duke of Urbino had received the insignia of the Garter two years previously. The picture is now at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The majority of those exquisite Madonna pictures, which have contributed more than anything else to Raphael's undying fame and popularity, date from his Florentine period — the " Madonna \ 42 RAPHAEL del Granduca" at the Pitti Palace, the "Casa Tempi Madonna" at Munich, the Chantilly "Madonna of the House of Or- leans," the "Madonna of the Meadow" in Vienna, the "Madonna of the Goldfinch" at the Uffizi, the " Madonna of the Lamb " at Madrid, Lord Cowper's famous picture at Panshanger, and the "Belle Jardiniere" at the Louvre. To the same period belongs the portrait of himself, in the Painter's Hall of the Uffizi, and the portrait of a youth in the Budapest National Gallery. On the occasion of his visit to Perugia, Atalanta Baglione, the mother of Grifonetto Baglione who had fallen a victim to the bloody family feud that turned Perugia into a slaughter-house in 1500, commissioned from Raphael an altar-piece in memory of that event — the " Entombment " which the master finished in Florence in 1507, and which is now at the Borghese Gallery. It was Raphael's RAPHAEL 43 first attempt at dramatic composition, the art of which he had yet to master— its forced, unnatural emotion lays it more open to criticism than any other work from his own hand. A law-case in connection with the pay- ment of 100 crowns due by him for a house he had purchased from the Cervasi family, necessitated Raphael's presence at Urbino once again in October 1507. In April of the following year Guidobaldo died ; and a letter from Raphael to his uncle Simone Ciarla, who had informed him of this sad event, proves that the master was then back again in Florence. After expressing his grief at the news of the Duke's death ("I could not read your letter without tears"), Raphael appeals in this letter to his uncle to procure him another letter of recommendation to the Gonfaloniere of Florence "from my Lord the Prefect," since it was in the power of the chief magi- 44 RAPHAEL strate of Florence to place an important commission for the decoration of a certain apartment. But a better fate was in store for the youthful applicant, who was to be called to a wider field of action. According to Vasari it was Raphael's kinsman, Bramante of Urbino, who drew Pope Julius II. 's atten- tion to the rare gifts of Raphael, and caused him to be summoned to Rome. And the voice of Bramante, who stood in high favour with the Pope, and was engaged on the scheme of rebuilding the Cathedral of St. Peter, would certainly have commanded attention. But on this, as on many other points, Vasari is not wholly trustworthy. First of all, Bramante was not connected with Raphael by any family ties ; and, then, it is far more probable that the thought of calling Raphael to Rome to assist in the decoration of the papal apartments in the Vatican was suggested to Julius II. RAPHAEL 45 by the Prefetessa Giovanna della Rovere, who had always been a staunch supporter of the Urbinate, or by her son Francesco, the nephew and successor of Duke Guido- baldo Montefeltre. Bramante, who was on terms of friendship with his fellow-artist and fellow-townsman, may well have supported the recommendation. However this may be, Raphael received the Pope's command, and journeyed to Rome, whither he had already been preceded by Michelangelo. Ill Raphael came to Rome before Septem- ber 1508, for on the 5th of that month he sent a letter from the city of the popes to Francia at Bologna, whom he had pro- bably met at Urbino. It must have been an intoxicating experience for the young master to find himself suddenly surrounded by the wonders of the classic world which 46 RAPHAEL at that time dominated the whole world of thought so that Christianity itself became permeated with Paganism; and to be as suddenly raised from the modest position, which in Florence had made him look with awe and veneration upon Michelangelo and iLionardo, to independent responsibility, as the compeer of the greatest of his calling. From the very first Pope Julius II. seems to have placed the utmost confidence in the newcomer, and the manner in which Raphael accomplished the first task set to him by his mighty patron not only justified this confidence but apparently made the Pope dissatisfied with much of the de- corative work that had been executed in the Vatican rooms before the advent of the Urbinate. Julius II.*s hatred of his predecessor, Alexander VI., had made it distasteful for him to live in the apartments that had been occupied by the Borgia Pope, so that he RAPHAEL 47 decided, in 1507, to move into the upper rooms of the Vatican, which, under the pon- tificate of Nicholas V., had been decorated by Pier dei Franceschi and Bramantino. These frescoes, however, did not find favour with the new Pope, who enlisted the services of Perugino, Peruzzi, Sodoma, Signorelli, and Pinturicchio for the redecoration of the Stanze, and finally entrusted Raphael with the painting of four medallions in Sodoma's ceiling in the first room, the Camera della Signatura. There has been some divergence of opinion as to the use of this room, but the subjects of the decora- tive scheme clearly point towards its being originally intended for a library. The allegorical figures of Theology, Philo- sophy, Jurisprudence, and Poetry with which Raphael filled the four medallions of the vaulted ceiling, were often used for the decoration of libraries during the late Re- naissance; and the frequent occurrence of 48 RAPHAEL books in all the compositions lends further probability to this theory. So delighted was Julius II. with the manner in which Raphael had acquitted himself of his first commission, that he, forthwith, charged him with the decoration of the entire suite of four rooms, and ruth- lessly decreed the destruction of all the fresco-work previously done by other hands. But Raphael, in his hour of victory, gave proof of that generous and amiable disposi- tion which endeared him to all with whom he came in contact. He prevailed upon his impetuous employer to save some of the work of Baldassare Peruzzi and of Perugino, and Sodoma's ceiling decoration in the Camera della Signatura. A series of heads by Bramantino, "so beautiful and so per- fectly executed, that the power of speech alone was required to give them life," had to go, but before their destruction Raphael had them copied by one of his assistants. RAPHAEL 51 After his death these copies were presented by Giulio Romano to Paolo Giovio, and it is more than probable that they are identical with the " Bramantino " portraits from the Willett collection, now at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and at South Ken- sington. Sir Caspar Pardon Clarke, the director of the former institution, at least favours this theory which I first advanced in the New York Herald in 1905. But to return to Raphael's work in the Camera della Signatura, the thought and knowledge and learning displayed in the whole scheme either prove that the young master rapidly fell into line with the intel- lectual movement of his day, or that he wisely sought the advice of those who stood at the head of this movement. Indeed, we know of a letter in which he asks the poet Ariosto to advise him about certain details. Moreover, the Pope himself, no doubt, sug- gested his own ideas to his favourite painter ; 52 RAPHAEL whilst the cultured Cardinal Bibbiena, Count Baldassare Castiglione, and the famous humanist Pietro Bembo, his intimate friends, were ever at his disposal, and Bramante probably assisted him in designing the architectural setting to his groups. Raphael himself, though extraordinarily receptive, and better able than anybody else to clothe an idea in the most perfect pictorial forms, / was not a man of learning. With Dante's and Petrarch's poetry he must have been made familiar in his father's house. He had probably dipped into the writings of Marsilio Ficino, and also acquired a know- ledge of the rudiments of classic lore ; but that he never mastered the Latin tongue, which was then a sine qua non of all real culture and learning, is clearly evident from the fact that in the closing years of his life, when he held the appointment of inspector of antiquities, he had to enlist the learned humanist Andrea Fulvio to trans- RAPHAEL 53 late for him the Latin inscriptions on classic ruins. In the Camera della Signatura, Raphael's entire decoration has the same sense of orderly arrangement, the same unity of conception in the endless variety of motif and incident, as each individual fresco of the scheme. On the pendentives, which connect the ceiling medallions with the large frescoes on the walls, he painted the "Fall of Man" next to "Theology," the " Judgment of Solomon " next to " Law," the " Triumph of Apollo over Marsyas " to accompany "Poetry," and an allegorical representation of "Astronomy" (or "Natural Science") to go with "Philosophy." After an enormous amount of preparatory work he proceeded to fill the large wall under " Theology " with the wonderful monumental fresco known as the "Disputa del Sacra- mento," which, far from representing a dispute, shows the confessors and saints 54 RAPHAEL and fathers of the Church (and among them Dante, Savonarola, and Fra AngeHco) united in acknowledging the triumph of the Church and the miracle of the Eucharist. On the opposite wall, under " Philosophy," is the so-called "School of Athens," in which, in accordance with the contradictory spirit of the age, the philosophic systems of the ancient world are glorified in the same manner as is Christianity in the "Disputa." In that nobly-arranged group of philosophers, Raphael's friends and con- temporaries — Bramante, Lionardo, Castig- lione, Francesco della Rovere, Federigo Gonzaga, Sodoma, the artist himself, and many others — figure in the guise of Euclid, Plato, Zoroaster, and other sages. Raphael's compositional skill was not baffled by the awkward intrusion of large door-frames into the space of the remaining two walls, on one of which, under the Poetry medallion, he de- picted " Parnassus," with the muses and poets RAPHAEL 55 (Homer, Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Boccaccio, Tebaldeo, Sappho, Sec.) grouped around Apollo, who plays a viol instead of the customary lyre. Above the door on the last wall are allegorical figures of Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance, and at the sides "Justinian delivering the Pandects," and "Gregory IX." (impersonated by Julius II.) promulgating the Decretals. The entire room was finished before November 151 1. It was probably in the same year that Raphael painted the magnificent portrait of Julius II. at the Pitti Palace, stern of J feature and careworn, as he well might have appeared at this time of political disaster culminating in the loss of Bologna. But when Raphael set about the decoration of the "Stanza of Heliodorus," the Pope's star was again in the ascendant, and his policy had achieved the signal triumph of defeating the French and driving them out of the country. The subjects chosen for S6 RAPHAEL the decoration of this room are in conse- quence more or less directly connected with these events, especially the fresco from which the apartment derives its name : the "Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple of Jerusalem "^ — an obvious allusion to the expulsion of the French forces. The fresco is remarkable for the effective contrast of the tumultuous dramatic movement on the right, and the stately repose of the group on the left, around the majestically enthroned figure of Pope Julius II. The same potentate of the Church appears kneeUng opposite the officiating priest in the fresco of the "Mass of Bol- sena," which illustrates the miracle of drops of blood appearing from the Host before the eyes of the priest who doubts the dogma of the transubstantiation, an event which has led to the institution of the Corpus Christi celebration. The fresco was probably in- spired by Julius himself, who had visited RAPHAEL 57 the chapel of Bolsena on his campaign against Bologna, and perhaps made a vow on this occasion to commemorate his visit by a votive offering. This " Mass of Bolsena " fresco is remarkable for the almost Venetian glow of warm colour, a result, no doubt, of the knowledge imparted to Raphael by Sebastiano del Piombo, who had come to Rome from Venice in 151 1. The wall opposite illustrates the " Liberation of St. Peter from Prison," which is, however, not an allusion, as has been suggested, to Leo X.'s escape from French captivity, since it was begun under the regime of Julius IL, who more probably intended it to signify the Deliverance of the Church. On the last wall is depicted the " Retreat of Attila before St. Leo," with Leo X., who had succeeded Julius n. in 1513, impersonating his name- sake, but there is little of Raphael's handi- work in this fresco, the execution of which is almost entirely due to his assistants. 58 RAPHAEL The decoration of this stanza was com- pleted in 1514, a year which brought further honours and duties to Raphael who was then appointed to succeed Bramante as architect of St. Peter's. Henceforth Raphael is to be considered I rather as the head of a little army of /painters and craftsmen, whom he supplied with ideas and designs to be executed under his directions, than as a master who is to be held responsible for the working out of every detail in the works which were turned out from his bottega with his sanc- tion, and under his name. Even in the early ' years of his Roman period, comparatively few of the altar-pieces and easel pictures \ commissioned from him were entirely the I work of his brush. In the ever popular " Madonna della Sedia," at the Pitti Palace, we have pure Raphael, and also in the masterpiece known as the " Madonna di Foligno," which was painted for the Pope's PLATE VII.— PUTTO WITH GARLAND (In the Academy of St. Luca, Rome) The fresco of a putto, now at the Academy of St Luca in Rome, is the only fragment that is left to the world of all the decorative work executed by Raphael for the corridor leading from the famous Stanze of the Vatican to the Belvedere. It probably belonged to a shield bearing the papal arms, and is a graceful and characteristic example of the master's treatment of the form of children which he loved to introduce into his compositions. RAPHAEL 6i Chamberlain Sigismondi dei Conti, for his family chapel in the church of Ara Coeli in 1512, in commemoration of this dignitary's escape from a bursting fireball, as is indi- cated by the meteor in the landscape back- ground. This picture was subsequently removed to Sigismondo's birthplace Foligno, whence it was carried off by the French in 1797, but had to be eventually restored, and is now among the treasures of the Vatican. The sadly deteriorated '* Madonna of the Tower," at the National Gallery, and the " Madonna di Casa d'Alba," at the Her- mitage, are probably of the master's own execution ; but Giulio Romano and other pupils must be held responsible for the "Vierge au Diademe," the "Madonna del divino Amore," the "Garvagh Madonna," the " Madonna of the Fish," the " Madonna of the Candelabra," and several other well- known pictures for which Raphael had supplied the designs. 62 RAPHAEL IV A letter written by Raphael to his uncle Simone Ciarla on the ist of July 1514 is of incalculable importance for the light it throws upon the master's private life and character. It is written by a man flushed with success, but modest withal — in the full enjoyment of all the gifts that fortune and his talent and tact have brought to him, but in no way overbearing or boastful. And through it all sounds a note of cool calcula- tion — in money matters as well as in the weighing of matrimonial chances. He states the amount of his fortune, of his salary as architect of St. Peter's, and of the payments that are to be made to him for "work in hand." And in the same way he refers to an "advantageous match" proposed to him by Cardinal Bibbiani, to which he has already pledged himself, but should it fall RAPHAEL 63 to the ground, "I will fall in with your wishes" — a reference apparently to an elig- ible matrimonial candidate in Urbino. Nor are there chances lacking in Rome, where, indeed, he knows of a pretty girl with a dowry of 3000 gold crowns ! He also men- tions with no little pride that he is living in Rome in his own house. These remarks about his matrimonial schemes take us to one of the most interest- ing and most disputed chapters of Raphael's life — his irregular attachment to the "Bella Fornarina," the beautiful daughter of a baker from Siena, which is referred to first by Vasari, and then, in 1665, by Fabio Chigi, and has been treated as mere invention by many modern writers. The evidence col- lected by Signor Rodolfo Lanciani proves, however, the truth of Vasari's story, and furthermore establishes the name and ulti- mate fate of the "Fornarina." According to local tradition, three houses in Rome are 64 RAPHAEL pointed out as the successive homes of Raphael's inamorata; and each of these houses is in close proximity to the buildings, on the decoration of which the master was successively employed. The first of these houses in the Via di Sta. Dorotea is still occupied by a bakery known as "il forno della Fornarina ; " the second is in the Vicolo del Cedro near St. Egidio in Trastevere ; and the third is the Palazzetto Sassi, which has a tablet let into the wall with an inscrip- tion to the effect that "Tradition says that the one who became so dear to Raphael, and whom he raised to fame, lived in this house." It has now been ascertained from a census return made under Leo X. in 1518, that one of the houses of the Sassi family was occupied by the baker Francesco from Siena, which completely tallies with the tra- dition that " Margherita, donna di Raffaello," as she is described in a contemporary mar- RAPHAEL 65 ginal note in a copy of the Giunta edition of Vasari in 1568, was the daughter of a baker from Siena. But even more decisive is the proof which was found in 1897 in an entry in the ledger of the Congregation of Sant' ApoUonia in Trastevere, a kind of Ihome for fallen and repentant women. This 'entry, which is under the date of the i8th August 1520, that is a little over four months after Raphael's death, runs as follows : " A di 18 Augusti 1520 Hoggi e stata recenta nel nro Conservatorio ma* Margarita vedoa, figliola del quondam Francescho Luti da Siena." ("August 18, 1520.— To-day has been received into our establishment the widow Margarita^ daughter of the late Francesco Luti of Siena") The remark- able coincidence of dates and names leaves no doubt that this "widow" was the Bella Fornarina, Margherita, the daughter of the baker Francesco from Siena, and the beautiful creature who served Raphael as 66 RAPHAEL model for the "Donna Velata," for the ** Sistine Madonna," and for one of the heads in the "St. Cecilia." The story goes that Raphael's attach- ihent lasted up to the time of his death, when, on the insistence of the Pope's messenger who was to bring the dying man the benediction, she was removed from the room. Vasari also relates that in his will Raphael "left her a sufficient provi- sion wherewith she might live in decency." His long infatuation with the baker's daughter may well account for his unwill- ingness to enter into the bonds of matri- mony even with as desirable and noble a partner as Cardinal Bernardo Divizio's niece, Maria Bibbiena, to whom he was practically engaged in 1514, and who after years of postponement is said to have died of a broken heart. Vasari's statement that Raphael's hesitation was due to the pro- spect of a cardinal's hat being bestowed RAPHAEL 67 upon him is utterly untrustworthy and con- trary to all precedent and reason. It is much more likely that Raphael considered it diplomatic to humour a man in as power- ful a position as Cardinal Bibbiena, and to agree to become engaged to his niece, even though his own position at the time was such that he could speak on terms of equality to cardinals, as may be gathered from this witty repartee recorded by his friend Baldassare Castiglione: Two cardi- nals, who examined a painting upon which he was just engaged, found fault with the redness of the complexion of St. Peter and St. Paul. "My Lords," retorted Raphael, be not concerned; because I painted them so with full intention, since we have reason to believe that St. Peter and St Paul are as red in Heaven as you see them here, for shame that their Church should be governed by such as you!" But we must return to Raphael's work 68 RAPHAEL in the last decade of his life. He could now no longer devote himself entirely to the art of his choice, and found it utterly impossible to cope with the multitude of commissions that were showered upon him by the mighty of this earth, even though a swarm of assistants were constantly kept at work. The vain appeals of Isa- bella d'Este for a small painting from his hand prove the difficulty of obtaining such a favour. For Raphael was now the Pope's architect and superintendent of ceremonies, and in 151 5 he was appointed inspector of antiquities in succession to Fra Giocondo of Verona. He had to paint scenery and to design medals and plans; and on one occasion he was actually called upon to paint a Hfe-size elephant on the walls of the Vatican ! Yet, with all these absorbing occupa- tions he found time to model several re- liefs for the Chigi tomb in the Chigi RAPHAEL -yj Chapel of St. Maria del Popolo, notably a panel of classic design representing "Christ and the Woman of Samaria," which was cast in bronze by Lorenzotto, who also executed in marble a statue of Jonah from a model by Raphael. He furnished the architectural designs of the Villa Madama for Giulio dei Medici (after- wards Clement VII.) and several other palaces in Rome, and also for the dainty Palazzo Pandolfini in Florence, where the alternating arched and triangular pedi- ments are for the first time introduced in secular Renaissance architecture. He furnished the engraver Marcantonio Rai- mondi of Bologna with designs like the famous "Judgment of Paris." He planned and began an elaborate Cosmography of Rome ; and yet in the midst of all his varied labours he found leisure to scribble some ardent love sonnets on his sheets of drawings. An example of his poetic effu- 72 RAPHAEL sions is preserved at the British Museum, and its ardent tone lends colour to Vasari's assertion that Raphael was extremely susceptible to the charms of the fair sex. The palace in which he lived in princely state was built by Bramante and bought by Raphael on October 7, 1517. In very much altered form it still stands in the Piazza di Scossacavalli at the corner of the Via di Borgo Nuovo. Since the present building has been identified as Raphael's palace, his studio has been discovered, cut into two apartments, but with a beauti- ful wooden ceiling by Bramante left in- tact. In this studio he must have painted the greatest and most deservedly popular of his altar-pieces, the " Madonna di San Sisto," and the "Transfiguration," now at the Vatican Gallery, which was on his easel when death stayed his hand. Here, too, he probably painted that masterly portrait RAPHAEL 73 of "Baldassare Castiglione," which is one of the priceless treasures of the Louvre, and perhaps the magnificent group of "Leo X. with Cardinals Giulio dei Medici and L. dei Rossi," now at the Pitti Palace. All the most notable men who were in Rome at that period passed through Raphael's studio, but of the portraits which he is known to have painted in Rome, comparatively few have come down to us. That of the humanist Tommaso Inghirami was until recently at the Inghirami Palace in Volterra, but has now gone across the Atlantic ; one of Cardinal Bibbiena is in Madrid ; and one of the Venetian humanists Navagero and Beazzano in the Doria Palace in Rome. Among the lost portraits are those of Pietro Bembo, of Giuliano dei Medici, Duke of Nemours, of Federigo Gonzaga, and of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino. Meanwhile Raphael's pupils had been busy with the decoration of the remaining 74 RAPHAEL two Stance of the Vatican after Raphael's designs. In the Stanza dell* Incendio del Borgo, which was decorated for Leo. X. between 1514-1517, Giulio Romano had painted the '' Battle of Ostia " and most of the " Incendio del Borgo," though parts of the latter, which illustrates the staying of the great conflagration by Leo IV. 's prayer, are unquestionably Raphael's own. The last room, called the Hall of Constantine, was almost entirely painted after the master's death by his pupils, who also had the chief share in the execution of the fifty-two scriptural subjects in the Loggia of the Vatican, which are known as "The Bible of Raphael." Most of this work was done by Perino del Vaga, while Giovanni da Udine added the arabesques and gro- tesques round the panels. But all this has suffered much from exposure to the ele- ments, and has been entirely repainted. For Agostino Chigi's Villa Farnesina, RAPHAEL 75 Raphael painted the beautiful " Galatea " fresco, which may be considered the supreme expression of the spirit of the Renaissance. This merchant prince gave the master another opportunity for displaying his de- corative skill, when he employed him in adorning the Chigi Chapel in St. Maria della Pace. The Sibyls and Angels of these frescoes afford the most striking instance of Michelangelo's influence upon Raphael ; and it is a curious coincidence that it was just in reference to this work that Michel- -^angelo was called upon to express his (opinion as to the fairness of Raphael's 1 charge of 500 ducats. That small jealousy jwas not one of Buonarroti's faults appears [from the generous valuation of 900 ducats I he put upon his rival's work. In 1515-1516 Raphael designed the car- toons for the tapestries which were to com- plete the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. The cartoons were translated into the 76 RAPHAEL material by the looms of Flanders at a cost of 34,000 scudi ; and these tapestries are now, after many wanderings, and after having suffered much dilapidation, housed on the upper floor of the Vatican. Seven of the cartoons, cut into strips for the exigencies of the loom, were discovered in Flanders by Rubens, and purchased on his advice by Charles I. in 1630. On the break- ing up of the ill-fated king's collection, they were saved from transportation by Oliver Cromwell and are now at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The execution of these cartoons is almost entirely due to Gian Francesco Penni, and the borders of the tapestries were designed by Giovanni da UsHne. About 1516 Raphael also deco- rated Cardinal Bibbiena's bathroom with the "Triumphs of Venus and Cupid," in Pompeian style. The frescoes are still in existence, but are not accessible to the public. RAPHAEL 77 In the early days of April 1520 Raphael was attacked by a fever which he had probably contracted in superintending some excavations. He made his last will on the 4th of April and died on the 6th. That he repented of his treatment of Maria Bibbiena is fairly evident from the epitaph which, by his wish, was placed upon her tomb : " We, Baldassare Turini da Pescia and Gianbattista Branconi dall' Aquila, testamentary executors and recipients of the last wishes of Raphael, have raised this memorial to his affianced wife, Maria, daughter of Antonio da Bibbiena, whom death deprived of a happy marriage." After providing for the Fornarina, so that she might " live in decency," he left his fortune of 16,000 ducats to his relatives, and his drawings and sketches to his favourite pupils Giulio Romano and Penni. He was buried in the Pantheon in close proximity to Maria Bibbiena. His epitaph was written by Cardinal Bembo, and Count Baldassare 78 RAPHAEL Castiglione also put his grief into the shape of a beautiful sonnet. "The death of Raphael," says Vasari, "was bitterly deplored by all the Papal court, not only because he had formed part thereof, since he had held the office of chamberlain to the Pontiff, but also because Leo X. had esteemed him so highly, that his loss occasioned that sovereign the bitterest grief. Oh, most happy and thrice blessed spirit, of whom all are proud to speak, whose actions are celebrated with praise by all men, and the least of whose works left behind thee is admired and prized." The plates are printed by Bemrose &> Sons, Ltd., Derby and London The text at the Ballantynk Press, Edinburgh 9/13 ry 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. fi:^< lb U^i iiii i\m^% ■ Fr- rr\iyH ^ OAN n-PT M 5'6S-Grr^ ^o