Raphael

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This article is about the Renaissance artist. For other uses, please see Raphael (disambiguation).

Self-portrait by Raphael.

Raphael or Raffaello (Urbino, Italy, April 6, 1483-Rome, April 6, 1520) was a master painter and architect of the Florentine school in the Italian High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and softness of his paintings. He was also called Raffaello Sanzio, Raffaello Santi, Raffaello de Urbino or Rafael Sanzio de Urbino. (A discussion of his birth and death dates appears below).

1 Biography
2 Dates of Birth and Death
3 Critical praise and legacy
4 Other works
5 Chronology of main works
6 See also
7 External links and references

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Biography

Raphael was born the son of Giovanni Santi and Màgia di Battista Ciarla, who died in 1491. The father was a mediocre poet (he had produced a famous ‘’Cronichle’’ in rime) and a painter for the court of Mantua: was then at the head of a renowned studio, at the payroll of Urbino. Giovanni instructed his son in painting and introduced him to the humanistic cultured court of Urbino, which at the end of the 15th century, had become one of the most active cultural centres in Italy under the rule of Federico da Montefeltro, who had died seven months before Raphael's birth. There Raphael could have encountered the works of Paolo Uccello, Luca Signorelli, and Melozzo da Forlì. Raphael showed an early talent, and by age 17, 1500, he was already defined a "master".

In his biography, Giorgio Vasari mantains that Raphael's father brought him as a 11 year old boy to Perugia, to apprentice with Pietro Perugino, but this is disputed. Anyway authorities agree to say that Raphael was in the Umbria city since 1492, one year after his father had died.

Portrait of Perugino by Raphael, painted c. 1504

The first documented work by Raphael is an altarpiece for the church of San Nicola da Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town midway between Perugia and Urbino: the piece was commissioned in 1500 and completed in 1501. It was greatly damaged by an earthquake in 1789, and today only fragments remain in the Pinacoteca Tosio Martenigo of Brescia. Another important early commission was the Crowning of the Virgin for the Oddi Chapel in the church of San Francesco in Perugia. Raphael, probably as a member of Perugino's workshop, worked also on the frescoes of Collegio del Cambio.

The Marriage of the Virgin (1504) is the main work of this period, inspired by Perugino's Giving of the Keys to St. Peter of 1481-1482. Shortly after Raphael completed three small paintings, Vision of a Knight, Three Graces and St. Michael all showing his already mature masterness, along with the life-long freshness, of his style.

In 1504 Raphael moved to Siena with painter Pinturicchio, whom he had supplied with designs and drawings for the frescoes in the Libreria Picolomini in Siena; and then to Florence, led by the more reasonable rule of gonfaloniere Pier Soderini after the excesses of Savonarola's years, and where two great masters Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, were at work. Raphael's presence in Florence is confirmed by the sources since the autumn of 1504. Here he lived for the following four years, even though he didn't stop to trip in other places such Perugia, Urbino and maybe Rome. In 1507 he was commissioned by a Perugian noblewoman the notable Deposition (Galleria Borghese, Rome).

In Florence, Raphael befriended several local painters, notably Fra Bartolomeo, a proponent of the idealistic ideas of High Renaissance; the influence of the latter pushed him to abandon the thin and graceful style of Perugino and embrace more grandiose and powerful forms. However, the strongest influence on Raphael's works of the Florentine period came from Leonardo's compositions, figure placements and gestures, as well as the innovative techniques (chiaroscuro and sfumato) of the master.

Toward the end of 1508, Pope Julius II advised by Raphael's townsman Donato Bramante, commissioned his services in Rome. At that time Raphael was 25-year-old painter who was still forging his style; soon, however, he gained popular fame and the favor of the Pope. He was started to be called "the prince of painters." In the following 12 years Raphael never left what would become his second mother country, working mainly for Julius and his successor Leo X (son of Lorenzo de Medici) with a series of masterpieces which turned him into the most sought-after artist of the city.

At the end of 1508 he began the decoration of the apartments of Julius in the Vatican, which, in the pope's vision, were intended to glorify the Roman Church's power through the justification of humanism and neoplatonism. The most famous of these frescoes are the Stanza della Segnatura ("Signature Room"), completed in 1511, with the famous Disputa and The School of Athens. Raphael continued to work to the Rooms until 1513, under the reign of Leo X, but left the last sections almost entirely to his pupils. In the meantime he worked on other tasks, such as secular and sacred decorations for various buildings, portraits, altarpieces, cartoons for tapestries, designs for dishes and stage sceneries.

The School of Athens, fresco in the Raphael Rooms.

Some of the most renowned works of this period stem from his friendship with the rich Senese banker Agostino Chigi, who commissioned his beautiful fresco of Galatea in his Villa Farnesina and the Sibyls in the church of Santa Maria della Pace, along with the design and the decoration of the Chigi Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo (1513). This first architectural work earned Raphael the seat of architect of the new Saint Peter's Basilica (whose construction had begun in 1506), left vacant by Bramante's death in 1514. Raphael changed the plan of the work from a Greek to a longitudinal design, but the project was again modified after his death. Two years later he drew the lines of the important Villa Madama in Rome. In 1515 he was also named as a sort of supervisor for Roman archaeology research, drawing up an archaeological map of the city.

Raphael’s prestige even gave his works a role in the creation and strengthening of political alliances, as in the cases of the works now in the Louvre, which were sent to the French court, and in the Portrait of Lorenzo de Medici for the Florentine party.

Raphael never married, even though sources reveal that in 1514 he was betrothed to Maria Bibbiena, niece of a cardinal, but the engagement was ended by the premature death of the girl. The legend tells his greatest love was one "Fornarina" ("little bakeress"), but her true existence is unconfirmed. According to Vasari, Raphael's premature death would be imputed to the excesses of love.

"Woman with a veil (La Donna Velata)", painted 1516

In his last years (1518-1520) the intervention of the workshop in Raphael’s works became more significant, now can been seen in works like Sicilia’s Spasimo for a church of Palermo and the Visitation now housed in the Prado of Madrid. Also, the decoration of the Constantine’s Room in the Vatican was executed entirely by his pupils on the base of the master’s drawings. His last autographical pictures are the Double portrait of the Louvre, the small but monumental Ezechiel's Vision and the Transfiguration.

Raphael died suddenly in Rome on his 37th birthday (reportedly just weeks before Leo was to invest him as a cardinal), deeply lamented by all who recognized his greatness. His body lay for a while in state in one of the rooms in which he had demonstrated his genius, and he was honoured with a public funeral. The Transfiguration was carried before him in the funeral procession. The unrelenting hand of death (says his biographer) set a limit on his achievement, and deprived the world of further benefit from his talents, when he had only attained an age at which most other men are but beginning to be useful. "We see him in his cradle (said Fuseli); we hear him stammer; but propriety rocked the cradle, and character formed his lips."[1]

He was interred in the Pantheon, the country's most honored burial place.

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Dates of Birth and Death

There is often confusion about Raphael's birth and death dates. Sources variously state: (a) he died on his 37th birthday; (b) he died on the eve of his 37th birthday; (c) both his dates of birth and death were Good Friday; and (d) there have been mistakes in converting from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar

The Gregorian calendar was introduced 62 years after Raphael's death, so the question of conversion between that calendar and the Julian calendar does not arise.

The facts seem to be that:

he was born on Good Friday, 6 April 1483
he died on his 37th birthday, 6 April 1520, not the day before, and
his 37th birthday was a Sunday (not Good Friday).

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Critical praise and legacy

Raphael was highly admired by his contemporaries. When compared to Michelangelo and Titian, he was sometimes considered inferior to those masters; at the same time, it was mantained that none of them shared all the qualities possessed by Raphael, "ease" in particular.

After the Sack of Rome of 1527, Raphael's langauge was spread all along the various Italian courts by his pupils and followers Giulio da Romano (in Mantua), Perin del Vaga (in Genoa), Polidoro da Caravaggio (in Naples). Mannerism is currently called the artistic school which stemmed from Rome in that period.

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Other works

After his arrival in Rome portraits become a secondary task for Raphael, being him highly committed in the great Vatican projects. Among the others, he portrayed of course the two popes Julius II and Leo X, the latter being considered one of his finest portraits.

One of the most important commissions he received by the popes was the series of ten cartoons for tapestries with scenes of the lives of Saint Paul and Saint Peter, intended as wall decoration for the Sistine Chapel. The cartoons were sent to Bruxelles to be sewn in the workshop of Pier van Aelst; first three tapestries were sent to Rome in 1519. It is possible that Raphael could see the finished series before his death: they were completed in 1520 for Leo X.

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