Part 2
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 asserts itself through the very marked Ferrarese and Peruginesque influences, was painted in 1504 for the church of St. Francesco at Città 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 to Urbino after the death of his enemy, Pope Alexander VI., and thither Raphael proceeded 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.
The young man must have been fairly bewildered at the multitude of new impressions that crowded upon him in the glorious city on the banks of the Arno, with its imposing palaces and churches, its seething life and its art so much more virile and monumental than the dreamy, almost effeminate art engendered by the soft balmy atmosphere of Umbria. How he must have revelled 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 himself to a more intimate study of the human form and movement! The fascination exercised upon him by the genius of Lionardo found expression in some of the earliest fruits of Raphael's sojourn in Florence--the 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 Bartolommeo, 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 £100,000. This picture, and the "Ansidei Madonna," which was bought for the National Gallery from the Duke of Marlborough's collection for £70,000, 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 between 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 del Granduca" at the Pitti Palace, the "Casa Tempi Madonna" at Munich, the Chantilly "Madonna of the House of Orleans," 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 Jardinière" 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 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 payment 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 magistrate 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 attention 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. 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 Guidobaldo 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.
III
Raphael came to Rome before September 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 probably 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 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 Lionardo, 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 decorative 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 decided, in 1507, to move into the upper rooms of the Vatican, which, under the pontificate 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 decorative scheme clearly point towards its being originally intended for a library. The allegorical figures of Theology, Philosophy, 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 Renaissance; and the frequent occurrence of 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 ruthlessly 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 disposition 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 perfectly 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. 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 Kensington. 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 intellectual 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, suggested his own ideas to his favourite painter; 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 knowledge of the rudiments of classic lore; but that he never mastered the Latin tongue, which was then a _sine quâ 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 translate 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 Sacramento," which, far from representing a dispute, shows the confessors and saints and fathers of the Church (and among them Dante, Savonarola, and Fra Angelico) 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 contemporaries--Bramante, Lionardo, Castiglione, 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 depicted "Parnassus," with the muses and poets (Homer, Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Boccaccio, Tebaldeo, Sappho, &c.) 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 1511.
It was probably in the same year that Raphael painted the magnificent portrait of Julius II. at the Pitti Palace, stern of 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 the decoration of this room are in consequence 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 kneeling opposite the officiating priest in the fresco of the "Mass of Bolsena," 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 inspired by Julius himself, who had visited 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 1511. 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 régime of Julius II., 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 II. in 1513, impersonating his namesake, but there is little of Raphael's handiwork in this fresco, the execution of which is almost entirely due to his assistants. The decoration of this stanza was completed 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 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 sanction, 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 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 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 indicated by the meteor in the landscape background. 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 Hermitage, are probably of the master's own execution; but Giulio Romano and other pupils must be held responsible for the "Vierge au Diadème," 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.
IV
A letter written by Raphael to his uncle Simone Ciarla on the 1st 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 calculation--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 to the ground, "I will fall in with your wishes"--a reference apparently to an eligible 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 mentions 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 interesting 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 collected by Signor Rodolfo Lanciani proves, however, the truth of Vasari's story, and furthermore establishes the name and ultimate fate of the "Fornarina." According to local tradition, three houses in Rome are 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 inscription 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 tradition that "Margherita, donna di Raffaello," as she is described in a contemporary marginal 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'Apollonia in Trastevere, a kind of home for fallen and repentant women. This entry, which is under the date of the 18th 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 nostro Conservatorio ma^a 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 remarkable 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 model for the "Donna Velata," for the "Sistine Madonna," and for one of the heads in the "St. Cecilia."