Raphael Santi, born at Urbino in 1483, died at Rome 1520, was the son and pupil of Giovanni Santi, a painter, whose death took place in 1494. Apprenticed about 1495 at Perugia, Raphael learned his profession from Perugino, and became such a clever imitator of his style that to this day the early pictures of the disciple are confounded with those of his teacher. Raphael, in fact, copied Perugino’s drawings (Academy of Venice), helped to work at Perugino’s pictures, and finished altarpieces from Perugino’s designs. Examples are the Resurrection of the Vatican and the Virgin and Child, with and without attendant saints, at Berlin. The presence of Raphael during these years at Perugia, Urbino, and Città di Castello may be traced by his sketches at each of these places. His first patrons were the Duke and princesses of Urbino, ecclesiastical corporations at Città di Castello, and ladies of the high families of Baglione and Oddi at Perugia. His earliest commissions were those of Città di Castello, where (1502–3) the most important of his early works, the Crucifixion in the Dudley collection, was painted. An Assumption of the Virgin, now at the Vatican, was executed shortly after for Maddalena degli Oddi. Distinct features in these pieces are dependence as to form on Perugino and Pinturicchio, combined with a feeling for grace and pure colour essentially original. In a Marriage of the Virgin of 1504 (Milan gallery), these qualities are found in conjunction with exact repetitions of Perugino’s figures. It is probable that about 1504 Raphael began to discern the advantage of greater independence. His predellas of the Vatican Coronation, and especially the Epiphany of that series, already display some acquaintance with the more advanced methods of the Florentines. Yet for some time longer the paramount influence of Perugino remained manifest, and Raphael showed Peruginesque influence in such pictures as the Connestabile Madonna, now at St Petersburg, the Vision of the Knight in the National Gallery, the little St Michael and St George, or the Marsyas of the Louvre, and the Graces belonging to the Duc d'Aumale at Chantilly. The painting of the Graces is obviously connected with a journey which Raphael made to Siena in 1505, when he gave assistance to Pinturicchio in drafting the preliminary design for frescoes in the Piccolomini library. It was there that he copied the Graces, of which the sketch is preserved at the Venice Academy. At Siena Raphael probably heard of the competition between Leonardo and Michaelangelo, who were rivals in 1505 for the decoration of the town-hall of Florence, and there is good cause for thinking that he accompanied Perugino to that capital to be near the lists of this artistic tournament. But before starting he probably took commissions, which gave as a final result the Virgin, Child, and Saints, in full length, called the Madonna Ansidei, now at the National Gallery, and the Virgin and Child with four saints, called the Madonna of Sant' Antonio, belonging to the Ripalda family, both of which were delivered at Perugia. The Madonna of Terranuova, a group of half-lengths at the Berlin Museum, was completed at Florence. Raphael was now on the path which Perugino had trod before him, had a painting-room at Florence and a painting-room at Perugia, but was not satisfied as his master had been with that finality which caused Perugino to remain stationary in the rut of an old style. He determined to acquire and assimilate some of the boldness of Michaelangelo, and the principles which Leonardo had been teaching to the students of his academy at Milan. When, after a short absence at Florence, he resumed work on the Ansidei and Sant' Antonio Madonnas at Perugia, Raphael gave as much as he could of the new spirit which was in him to those compositions, without being able to alter their archaic character. In the second of these pictures some heads, recast in a new mould, reveal the influence of Da Vinci; for it is characteristic of Raphael that, after witnessing the struggle of that master with Michaelangelo, he came for a time to the conclusion that Leonardo was the better man so far as grace and expression were in question, though for action the spirit of Michaelangelo might be preferable. The Terranuova Madonna shows the struggle in which Raphael was engaged. It has the brightness and sweetness of the Umbrian with the breadth of execution of the Florentine. But similar characteristics distinguish the five small predellas which once formed part of the Madonna of Sant' Antonio, whilst the 'Sermon on the Mount,' in Lord Lansdowne's collection at Bowood, and part of the predella of the Ansidei Madonna, display the influence of the works of Masaccio, Filippino, and Ghirlandajo.
It is not historically proved that Raphael and Da Vinci were intimate, but all the pictures which left Raphael's easel at Florence in 1505-6 recall Leonardo in expression, concentration of lines and light, tempered atmosphere, and subtle combinations of movement and tints. Examples are Madonnas and Holy Families, of which the most conspicuous are that of the Gran Duca, the small Cowper, the Cardellino, and Casa Tempi, at Florence, and the Virgin in Green at Vienna. But in portrait more than elsewhere the lessons of Da
Vinci are visible, and the likeness of Maddalena Doni at Florence is inspired by the Mona Lisa of the Louvre. Of special interest to Englishmen as a creation of this time is the St George, which was sent by the Duke of Urbino to Henry VII. of England, in return for the garter given by that prince to Guidubaldo of Montefeltro. Attractions in other ways are the painter's own likeness at the Uffizi, in which we discern that the grace of his art was also displayed in Raphael's person, the Madonnas of Orleans, of the Palm, of St Petersburg, and Canigiani, in which Raphael finally appears as a pure Tuscan familiar with the arts of all his Florentine contemporaries.
The Entombment to which Raphael now turned his attention was finished for Atalanta Baglioni, and recalls in many ways the misfortunes which attended the worthless family of that name, which had so long governed Perugia. The sketches for the picture contain incidents that remind us of a massacre in which Atalanta lost her son. The picture in the Borghese palace is an embodiment of all the new principles which Raphael acquired at Florence, realising the perfect drawing of Da Vinci and the sculptural shape of Michaelangelo, allied to Peruginesque softness, and colour such as only Raphael could give. The result is perhaps a little stiffness, which is happily avoided in a graceful predella representing Hope, Faith, and Charity. As this fine work advanced to completion Raphael became very evidently attracted by the style of Fra Bartolommeo; and, under the influence of that master of monumental painting, he brought in part to perfection the Apostles attendant on the Eternal, in a fresco at San Severo of Perugia, whilst he composed and finished the Madonna del Baldacchino at Florence. During the progress of these works Raphael got into a large practice at Florence, where he reigned supreme in the absence of Perugino, Leonardo, and Michael Angelo. Some of the best work of his Florentine period was now produced—the small Holy Family with the Lamb at Madrid, much in the spirit of Da Vinci; the St Catharine of the Louvre; the Bridgewater and Colonna Madonnas; the Virgin and Sleeping Infant of Milan; the large Cowper Madonna; the Bella Giardiniera, and the Esterhazy Madonna.
From the days of Giotto and Masaccio to those of Raphael Rome had always attracted to its centre painters and sculptors of acknowledged skill in other cities of Italy. Michaelangelo had left Florence for the Vatican, and Raphael in 1508 did the same at the instigation of his relative Bramante, who was in great favour with Julius II., and not without support from Michaelangelo. The plans of this pope were gigantic. He laid the foundation of the new cathedral of St Peter because old St Peter's was tottering to its fall, and he caused the papal chambers to be decorated afresh because he disliked the frescoes of the old masters at that time covering their walls. He employed Raphael because Perugino, Sodoma, and others had failed to satisfy his taste. The date of Raphael's engagement to paint the 'Camere' of the Vatican is now fixed with certainty as 1509. In the ceiling of the chamber 'of the Signature' the space is divided into fields, in which the Temptation, the Judgment of Solomon, the Creation of the Planets, and Marsyas and Apollo were inserted side by side with medallions enclosing allegories of Theology, Philosophy, Justice, and Poetry. All these pictures exhibit an expanded style, in which the spirit of Perugino, quickened by the subtler spirit of Leonardo and Fra Bartolommeo, becomes associated with the antique. Never before had the artist had such an opportunity of study as now. When at Rome he was enabled to visit the treasures of old sculpture and gems at the Vatican, and the collections of the cardinals Rovere and Medici. On the walls of the camera Raphael began the Disputa, in which he represented the Eternal, Christ, Mary, and the apostles and angels presiding in heaven over the sages of the Trinitarian controversy. Here Raphael practically entered on a method of painting with which he had not been very familiar; but he gained confidence as he proceeded, and, gradually descending from the higher parts to the lower, he equally applied the models and precepts of Leonardo and Fra Bartolommeo, became bolder and more energetic in the conception and rendering of form, and nearly succeeded in equalling the power of Michaelangelo himself. It was a happy time during which the youthful master laboured at this composition, the time when he longed to add to the art which he knew so well that of poetry, in which Michaelangelo excelled. His sketches for the Disputa are filled with snatches of sonnets, which, as he soon saw, were entirely beneath the mark. But if his friends should reject his verses, they could praise his picture, which is indeed the noblest work that had then been completed at Rome. The School of Athens immediately followed the Disputa, taking Raphael into the pre-Christian period of Plato and Aristotle. The picture embodied old philosophy and sciences. It was laid out in a temple planned for Raphael by Bramante, in which the philosophers met, appropriately clad in the dress of the ancient Greeks, surrounded by statues and bas-reliefs, which all gave occasion to the painter to transport his spectators into an almost forgotten realm. The manner in which he reproduced antique character and costume, in action, movement, and expression, is acknowledged to have been worthy of the man who succeeded in displaying with a single effort the progress made by Italian painters from the days of Giotto to those of Ghirlandajo. The Parnassus which came after the School of Athens takes us back to the age of Greek verse, showing us Apollo and the Muses attended by the poets from Homer to Ovid, and escorted by Dante. Raphael admirably transformed the antique into something living and present to the moderns, infusing into groups and figures the life of a scenic actuality. The allegory of Prudence, which came next, is less natural than the Parnassus, but rescued from affectedness by grace of lines and skill in pictorial treatment. The subordinate pictures of the Pope accepting the Decretals, Justinian receiving the Pandects, and Augustus saving the manuscripts of Virgil are worthy adjuncts to the principal themes. Julius II. asked Raphael to introduce his portrait into the Decretals, and the likeness of the pontiff with a beard enables us to fix the date of the completion of the Chamber of the Signature in the middle of August 1511. On the same day that Julius II. was privileged to witness the completion of Raphael's first cycle of wall-paintings he officiated at mass in the Sixtine Chapel, where the first half of Michaelangelo's ceiling was uncovered.
During the progress of the works in which he employed and formed the talents of his disciples, Giovanni da Udine, Penni, and Giulio Romano, Raphael divided his time between the labours of the Vatican and easel-pictures. The portraits of Julius II. and the Virgin of the Popolo, of which copies have come down to us, were executed; drawings were furnished to the copper-plate-engraver Marcantonio for the Massacre of the Innocents; and Madonnas and Holy Families were composed, of which it is only possible here to give the names—Madonnas of Alba at St Petersburg, of Garvagh at the National Gallery, of Mr Rogers, of the Diadem at the Louvre. Nothing could exceed the impatience of Julius to get the chambers of the Vatican properly decorated. He urged Raphael not in vain to begin the chamber of Heliodorus, and in a comparatively short time the master produced, with clever help from his disciples, the ceiling, in which the Eternal appears to Noah, Abraham's Sacrifice, Jacob's Dream, and the Burning Bush. In all these compositions Raphael's mastery is great, and his figures of the Eternal are majestic. The Expulsion of Heliodorus and the Mass of Bolsena are planned so that by a pictorial license the pontiff is present as the scenes are enacted. The death of Julius early in 1513 but slightly interrupted the labours of the painter, who gave a noble rendering of Leo X. and his suite in the picture of the Defeat of Attila. The Deliverance of Peter, which closed the decorations, was an effective piece of composition, in which Raphael for once indulged in contrasts of torch and moonlight and glare balanced by powerful gloom. The constant employment of disciples enabled Raphael, in the three years which elapsed between the completion of the two chambers—i.e. between 1511 and 1514—to finish the Madonna di Foligno at Rome, the Isaiah of St Agostino at Rome, the Galatea of the Farnesina, and the Sibyls of the Pace, not to speak of the mosaics of the Popolo ordered by Agostino Chigi. In many of these works Raphael's style is equal to that of Michaelangelo at the Sixtine, with the additional charm of a grace which was his own. He also laid the antique under contribution with great skill and success, and his art was that of a master who works without hesitation because ready for every form of effort that can be required of him. In a graver mood he also painted at this time the severe Madonna of the Fish at Madrid, in a playfully sweet mood the Madonna della Sedia at Florence; whilst in portraits such as Altoviti at Munich, and Inghirami at Florence, he rises to the perfect rendering of features and expression which finds its greatest triumph in the Leo X. of Florence.
Raphael, who had been greatly favoured by Julius, became a personal favourite of Leo, who selected him to succeed Bramante as architect of St Peter's in 1514, and afterwards made him inspector of Roman ruins. But he was as impatient as his predecessor to get the Vatican chambers finished, and he successfully obtained from the masters the frescoes of the Camera dell'Incendio, which all illustrate scenes from the lives of Leonine popes: the Fire of Borgo, in which all the remnants of Roman buildings known to Raphael are introduced, the Battle of Ostia against the Saracens, the Coronation of Charlemagne, and the Oath of Leo III. But Raphael was now too busy to attend personally to wall-painting, and much of his attention was taken up with the composition of the cartoons which he executed, with help from assistants, for the tapestries of the Sixtine Chapel. It would be impossible to describe these masterpieces or the tapestries made from them in the space here at our command. The cartoons may be seen at the Kensington Museum, the tapestries at the Vatican. They are masterpieces worthy of a pilgrimage; the first completed in December 1516, the second woven at Brussels in 1519. At this period of his career Raphael was a welcome guest in the best circles of Rome, painted the likenesses of the pope's relatives, Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici, and was asked in vain for pictures by the Duke of Ferrara. His portraits of the Duke of Urbino, Castiglione, Bembo, Navagero, and his decoration of Cardinal Bibicena's rooms at the Vatican tell of the company which he frequented. When Leo X. succeeded to Francis I. after Marignano Raphael followed the pontiff to Florence and Bologna, and found there the new patrons for whom he executed the Sixtine Madonna, the St Cecilia of Bologna, and the Ezechiel of the Pitti. The labours subsequently completed were immense, including the Spasimo at Madrid, the Holy Family and St Michael, which the pope sent to the king of France in 1518, and the likeness of the vice-queen of Aragon, followed by the celebrated portrait of the Violin-player of the Sciarra collection at Rome. Wall-painting, with help from the assistants, was diligently carried on, and produced the cycle of the Psyche legend at the Farnesina, the gospel-scenes of the Loggie of the Vatican, and the frescoes of the Hall of Constantine. The last work done in the master's painting-room was the Transfiguration, which was nearly finished when Raphael died of a pernicious fever caught in the excavations of Rome. He expired on the 6th of April 1520, after a week's illness.
See Castiglione, Cortigiano (Padua, 1766); Pungilconi, Elogio Storico di Raffaello Santi (Urbino, 1822); Rumohr, Forschungen (Berlin, 1827); Passavant, Raphael (Paris, 1860); Campori, Notizie e Documenti (Modena, 1870); Vasari, Vite (ed. Lemonnier, Florence, 1846); Müntz, Raphael (Paris, 1881); Cugnoni's Life of Chigi (Rome, 1881); Grimm, Das Leben Raphaels (Berlin, 1886; Eng. trans. 1889); Springer, Raffael und Michelangelo (2d ed. Leip. 1883); Lübke, Rafaels Leben und Werke (Dresden, 1881); Von Lützow, Raffaels Bildungs- und Entwicklungsgang (Vienna, 1890); Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice (Bologna, 1678); Paris de Grassi's Diaries (MS. in the Vatican); and Raphael, his Life and Work, by the present writer and G. B. Cavalcaselle (1882).