Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their life of Raphael, speak of the "warm tone of flesh burnished to a nicety and shaded with exceptional force," in this picture. "The coal-black eyes have a fascinating look of intentness, which is all the more effective as they are absolutely open, under brows of the purest curves… The forehead has a grand arch, the cheeks are broad, the chin rounded and small. The contours are all circular. The flesh has a fulness which characterizes alike the neck, the drooping shoulders, and the arms and extremities."
Passavant thus speaks of a portrait in Florence, which belonged to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. "This portrait in the Pitti Palace bears a strong resemblance to the Madonna di San Sisto (Dresden Museum), with this difference, however, that the features of the Virgin are ennobled. The woman in the portrait is a handsome Roman, but of quite individual character. Her form is powerful, her costume sumptuous, her beautiful black eyes flash, her mouth is refined and full of grace.
"If this portrait, as may well be believed, represents the same person as that of the Barberini house, we are compelled to admit that the countenance, always intelligent, of this young girl, had become wonderfully animated in the time between the execution of the two portraits. However," he adds, "it would be indeed astonishing if constant intercourse with the author of so many masterpieces, and one of the most perfect human organizations that nature ever produced, should have failed to influence the facile character of a young girl. This second portrait, to judge by the manner in which it is painted, must belong to the last years of Raphael's life."
With this fervent and lasting love for Margherita in his heart, Raphael painted the other three mural paintings in the Vatican hall: the "Parnassus," Apollo surrounded by the Nine Muses, Homer singing, Dante and Virgil conversing, with Pindar, Sappho, Horace, Petrarch, Ovid, and others; "Jurisprudence," with Emperor Justinian and Gregory IX., the one founding the laws of the State, the other the laws of the Church; the "School of Athens," with the masters of ancient philosophy and science assembled.
On the left we see the most ancient of the philosophic schools gathered around Pythagoras. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are surrounded by their pupils; Archimedes and Zoroaster are the central figures of the interested group. Diogenes sits on the central steps of the grand hall where more than fifty great men are assembled.
Passavant says, "In the 'School of Athens,' Raphael showed the full power of his genius, and that he was completely master both of his style and of his execution. In the part of this picture requiring great learning, it is possible, and indeed highly probable, that Raphael consulted the most erudite of his friends, and amongst others the Count Castiglione, who had just come to settle at Rome.
"However this may be, to Raphael alone belongs the great honor of having succeeded in representing, in a single living and distinct image, the development of Greek philosophy. It was Raphael who conceived the idea of grouping the personages according to the rank they occupy in history, and rendered the tendencies of these philosophers apparent, not merely by ingenious grouping, but also by their actions, their attitudes, and countenances.
"This fresco, in which he rose to such dignity and to such a grand style, is justly considered as the most magnificent work the master ever produced. It does, indeed, unite the technical experience of drawing, coloring, and touch – the conquests of the more modern schools – to the severity bequeathed to them by the more ancient ones…
"A great era in arts, as in literature, does not always follow the appearance of an extraordinary genius. It comes on gradually, and its progress may be noted. It has its infancy, and with it the simplicity belonging to that age; then its youth, with the grace and sentiments natural to youth; afterwards maturity, with its increased power.
"Raphael was the highest expression of the art of the sixteenth century; he attained its greatest perfection. He was a continuation of the chain of artists in his time, and was its last and brightest link."
Eugene Muntz calls this papal hall, the Stanza della Segnatura, "the most splendid sanctuary of modern art. The profundity of ideas, the nobility of the style, and the youthful vitality which prevails in every detail of the decoration, make up a monumental achievement which is without parallel in the annals of painting, without equal even among the other works of Raphael himself."
During the three years' work in this hall, Raphael painted several other pictures: the magnificent portrait of Pope Julius II., now in the Pitti Palace; the "Madonna di Foligno," now in the Vatican, a large altar-piece for Sigismondo Conti di Foligno, private secretary to the pope; the Virgin seated on golden clouds surrounded by half-length angels against a blue sky. "A burning globe, with a rainbow above it, is falling from the sky. According to tradition this globe is a bomb, and bears reference to the danger incurred by Sigismondo at the siege of Foligno, his native town, and the rainbow may be considered symbolical of the reconciliation of the donor with God."
The Madonna della Casa d'Alba, round, on wood, only nine and one-half inches in diameter, was originally in a church at Nocera de Pagani, in the Neapolitan States, and later was owned by the Duke of Alba, at Madrid. The Duchess of Alba gave it to her doctor, in her will, for curing her of a dangerous disease. She died very soon, and the doctor was arrested on suspicion of poison, but was finally liberated. The painting came into the possession of the Emperor of Russia, for seventy thousand dollars, and is in the Hermitage.
The "Madonna del Pesce," the gem of the Italian Gallery of the Madrid Museum, which some persons rank equal to the Sistine Madonna, represents the Virgin holding the Child, who rests his hand on an open book. Tobias, holding a fish, and led by an angel, implores a cure for his father's blindness.
Raphael also executed for the wealthy Agostino Chigi, the protégé of Julius II. and Leo X., the frescos in the Church Santa Maria della Pace. Cinelli tells this anecdote: "Raphael of Urbino had painted for Agostino Chigi, at Santa Maria della Pace, some prophets and sibyls, on which he had received an advance of five hundred scudi. One day he demanded of Agostino's cashier (Giulio Borghesi) the remainder of the sum at which he estimated his work. The cashier, being astonished at this demand, and thinking that the sum already paid was sufficient, did not reply. 'Cause the work to be estimated by a judge of painting,' replied Raphael, 'and you will see how moderate my demand is.'
"Giulio Borghesi thought of Michael Angelo for this valuation, and begged him to go to the church and estimate the figures of Raphael. Possibly he imagined that self-love, rivalry, and jealousy would lead the Florentine to lower the price of the pictures.
"Michael Angelo went, accompanied by the cashier, to Santa Maria della Pace, and, as he was contemplating the fresco without uttering a word, Borghesi questioned him. 'That head,' replied Michael Angelo, pointing to one of the Sibyls, 'that head is worth a hundred scudi.'… 'And the others?' asked the cashier. 'The others are not less.'
"Some who witnessed this scene related it to Chigi. He heard every particular, and, ordering, in addition to the five hundred scudi for five heads, a hundred scudi to be paid for each of the others, he said to his cashier, 'Go and give that to Raphael in payment for his heads, and behave very politely to him, so that he may be satisfied; for if he insists on my also paying for the drapery, we should probably be ruined.'"
From 1512 to 1514, Raphael frescoed the second Vatican hall, La Stanza d'Eliodoro. The first mural painting was "The Miraculous Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple at Jerusalem," the angels attacking him as he is taking the money destined for widows and orphans.
The second fresco is the "Miracle of Bolsena," where, in the reign of Urban IV., a priest, who doubted the reality of transubstantiation, saw the blood flow from the Host while he was celebrating mass. These are called the most richly colored frescos in the world, exceeding the celebrated ones of Titian in the Scuola di San Antonio, at Padua.
The third fresco represents the "Deliverance of St. Peter from Prison," and the fourth, Attila arrested in his march on Rome in 452, by the apparition of St. Peter and St. Paul. A frightful hurricane is raging at the time, and the Huns are filled with terror. Leo X., who had succeeded Julius II., desired to be immortalized instead of St. Leo, so, with a touch of human nature not entirely spiritual, caused himself and his court, driving the French under Louis XII. out of Italy, to be painted in the picture. Passavant says, "A few very animated groups of soldiers had to be sacrificed; but on the whole the composition gained by the alteration, from the contrast of the calm gentleness of the pontiff with the ferocity of the barbarians. In execution this fresco may be considered as one of the most perfect by this master."
While this second room in the Vatican was being painted, Raphael, as usual, was engaged also in other work.
In the Chigi palace, or Farnesina, he painted the beautiful fresco, "Galatea." The subject is taken from the narrative of Philostratus about the Cyclops. "In the fresco," says Passavant, "Galatea is gently sailing on the waves. Love guides the shell, which is drawn by dolphins, and surrounded by tritons and marine centaurs, who bear the nymphs. Little cupids in the air are shooting arrows at them. All these figures form a contrast with the beautiful Galatea, whose languid eyes are raised to heaven, the centre of all noble aspirations.
"Galatea is an image of beauty of soul united to that of the body. It is, indeed, a sort of glorified nature; or, rather, a goddess clad in human form. Raphael's genius defies all comparison, and has attained in this masterpiece a height which approaches very nearly to perfection."
This fresco won the most enthusiastic praise. His friend, Count Castiglione, wrote him in hearty commendation, and Raphael replied, —
"As for 'the Galatea,' I should think myself a great master if it possessed one-half the merits of which you write, but I read in your words the love you bear to myself. To paint a figure truly beautiful, I should see many beautiful forms, with the further provision that you should be present to choose the most beautiful. But, good judges and beautiful women being rare, I avail myself of certain ideas which come into my mind. If this idea has any excellence in art I know not, although I labor heartily to acquire it."
How modest the spirit of this letter, and how fully it shows that the young artist lived in an ideal world, filled with exquisite things of his own creating. Some natures always see roses instead of thorns, sunshine behind the clouds; believe in goodness and purity rather than in sin and sorrow; and such natures make the world lovelier by their uplifting words and hopes.
The famous artist, now thirty-one, had become wealthy, and had built for himself a tasteful and elegant home on the Via di Borgo Nuova, not far from the Vatican. "The ground floor of the façade was of rustic architecture, with five arched doors, four of which were for the offices, and the one in the centre for the entrance to the house. The upper story was of Doric order, with coupled columns, and five windows surmounted by triangular pediments. The entablature which surmounted the whole was of a severe style; imitated from the antique. This beautiful building no longer exists. The angle of the right of the basement, which now forms a part of the Accoramboni palace, is the only part that remains."
Raphael's friends, with that well-meant, but usually injudicious interference which is so common, were urging him to bring a wife into his home. His uncle, Simone di Battista di Ciarla, seems to have been anxious, for the artist writes him in 1514, "As to taking a wife, I will say, in regard to her whom you destined for me, that I am very glad and thank God for not having taken either her or another. And in this I have been wiser than you who wished to give her to me. I am convinced that you see yourself that I should not have got on as I have done."
Another person seemed equally anxious for his marriage. Cardinal Bibiena, who had been Raphael's intimate friend when he lived in Urbino, had long been desirous that he should marry Maria, the daughter of Antonio Divizio da Bibiena, his nephew. Evidently Raphael was engaged to her, for he writes to this uncle, Simone, "I cannot withdraw my word; we are nearer than ever to the conclusion." As the matter was deferred year by year – as many writers believe, because Raphael, loving Margherita, was unwilling to marry another – he was saved from the seeming necessity of keeping his promise, by Maria's death some time previous to his own. She is buried in Raphael's chapel in the Pantheon, not far from his grave. He had met and loved Margherita in 1508, six years earlier, and possibly after his engagement to Maria. Margherita was in his house when he died, and to her he left an adequate portion of his property.
This year, 1514, Bramante, the architect of St. Peter's, having died, Raphael was appointed his successor. Perceiving that the four columns which were to support the cupola had too weak a foundation, the first work was to strengthen these. He executed a plan of the church, which some think superior to that which Michael Angelo carried out after Raphael's death. He studied carefully the architectural works of Vitruvius, and planned several beautiful structures in Rome.
Raphael also had the oversight of all the excavations in and around Rome, so that pieces of antique statuary, which were often found, might be carefully preserved. "To this end," wrote Leo X., "I command every one, of whatever condition or rank he may be, noble or not, titled or of low estate, to make you, as superintendent of this matter, acquainted with every stone or marble which shall be discovered within the extent of country designated by me, who desire that every one failing to do so shall be judged by you, and fined from one hundred to three hundred gold crowns."
The third hall of the pope, called the Stanza del Incendio, was painted from 1514 to 1517. The first fresco is "The Oath of Leo III.," who, brought before the Emperor Charlemagne for trial, was acquitted through a supernatural voice proclaiming that no one had the right to judge the pope.
The second fresco is "The Coronation of Charlemagne by Leo III.," thus signifying that the spiritual power is above the temporal power. The two principal portraits are, however, Leo X. and Francis I., who formed an alliance in 1515.
The third and finest picture is "The Conflagration of the Borgo Vecchio at Rome." The other pictures were executed in part by the pupils of Raphael. This was by his own hand. In 847 a fire broke out in Rome, which extended from the Vatican to the Mausoleum of Adrian. The danger from the high wind was very great, when Pope Leo IV. implored divine aid, and at once the flames assumed the form of a cross, and the fire was quenched. "Several of the figures," says Passavant, "are considered as perfect and inimitable, amongst others the two beautiful and powerful women who are bringing water in vases, and whose forms are so admirably delineated under their garments agitated by the wind."
The last fresco shows the "Victory of Leo IV. over the Saracens at Ostia." The pope, Leo IV., with the face of Leo X., is on the shore, engaged in prayer.
At this time Raphael made sepia sketches for the Loggie leading to the apartments of the pope; thirteen arcades, each arcade containing four principal pictures. Forty-eight of these scenes are taken from the Old Testament, and four from the life of Christ. Taken together, they are called "Raphael's Bible." Vasari said of the decorations in the Loggie, "It is impossible to execute or to conceive a more exquisite work." Catherine II. of Russia had all these Loggie paintings copied on canvas, and placed in the Hermitage, in a gallery constructed for them, like that in the Vatican. This gallery cost a million and a half of dollars.
In these busy years, 1515 to 1516, the famous cartoons for the Sistine Chapel were made. Sixtus IV. had built the chapel. Michael Angelo, under Julius II., had painted in it his "History of the Creation," and "Prophets and Sibyls." And now Raphael was asked to make cartoons for ten pieces of tapestry, to be hung before the wainscoting on high festivals. The cartoons are, "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes," "Christ's Charge to Peter," "The Martyrdom of St. Stephen," "The Healing of the Lame Man," "The Death of Ananias," "The Conversion of St. Paul," "Elymas struck with Blindness," "Paul and Barnabas at Lystra," "St. Paul Preaching at Athens," and "Saint Paul in Prison." The cartoons were sent to Arras, in Flanders, and wrought in wool, silk, and gold. Brought to Rome in 1519, they were hung in St. Peter's, on the feast of St. Stephen.
The enthusiasm of the Romans was unbounded. Vasari says this work "seems rather to have been performed by miracle than by the aid of man." These tapestries, after many changes, are now in the Vatican, much soiled and faded. Of the cartoons, twelve feet by from fourteen to eighteen feet, with figures above life-size, seven of them are to be seen in the South Kensington Museum. They were purchased at Arras by Charles I., on the recommendation of Rubens. They are yearly studied by thousands of visitors. Grimm calls the cartoons "Raphael's greatest productions." He considers the "Death of Ananias" "as the most purely dramatic of all his compositions."
"Compared with these," says Hazlitt, "all other pictures look like oil and varnish; we are stopped and attracted by the coloring, the pencilling, the finishing, the instrumentalities of art; but here the painter seems to have flung his mind upon the canvas. His thoughts, his great ideas alone, prevail; there is nothing between us and the subject; we look through a frame and see Scripture histories, and are made actual spectators in miraculous events.
"Not to speak it profanely, they are a sort of a revelation of the subjects of which they treat; there is an ease and freedom of manner about them which brings preternatural characters and situations home to us with the familiarity of every-day occurrences; and while the figures fill, raise, and satisfy the mind, they seem to have cost the painter nothing. Everywhere else we see the means; here we arrive at the end apparently without any means."
Raphael was now overwhelmed with orders for pictures. He had shown worldly wisdom – a thing not always possessed by genius – in having his works engraved by men under his own supervision, so that they were everywhere scattered among the people.
In 1516 he decorated the bath-room of his friend Cardinal Bibiena, who lived on the third floor of the Vatican. The first sketch represents the Birth of Venus; then Venus and Cupid, seated on dolphins, journey across the sea; she is wounded by Cupid's dart; she pulls out the thorn which has pierced her. The blood, falling on the white rose, gives us, according to tradition, the rich red rose. These paintings were certainly of a different nature from the others in the Vatican, and, while Passavant thinks it strange that a spiritually minded cardinal should have desired such pictures, they were nevertheless greatly admired and copied.
This same year, 1516, one of Raphael's most celebrated Madonnas was painted, the one oftener copied, probably, than any other picture in the world, "The Madonna della Sedia," now in the Pitti Palace. The Virgin, with an uncommonly sweet and beautiful face, is seated in a chair (sedia), with both arms encircling the infant Saviour, his baby head resting against her own. Grimm says, "Mary has been painted by Raphael in different degrees of earthly rank; the Madonna della Sedia approaches the aristocratic, but only in outward show, for the poorest mother might sit there as she does. Gold and variegated colors have been used without stint… The dress of the mother is light blue; the mantle which she has drawn about her shoulders is green, with red and willow-green stripes and gold-embroidered border; her sleeves are red faced with gold at the wrists. A grayish brown veil with reddish brown stripes is wound about her hair; the little dress of the child is orange-colored, and the back of the chair red velvet. The golden lines radiating from the halo around the head of the child form a cross, and over the mother's and John's float light golden rings. All the tones are flower-like and clear… A harmonious glow irradiates it, which, partaking of a spiritual as well as a material nature, constitutes the peculiarity of this work, and defies all attempts at reproduction. Pictorial art has produced few such works which actually in their beauty exceed nature herself, who does not seem to wish to unite so many advantages in one person or place…
"Raphael's Madonnas have the peculiarity that they are not distinctively national. They are not Italians whom he paints, but women raised above what is national. Leonardo's, Correggio's, Titian's, Murillo's, and Rubens's Madonnas are all in some respects affected by their masters' nationality; a faint suggestion of Italian or Spanish or Flemish nature pervades their forms. Raphael alone could give to his Madonnas that universal human loveliness, and that beauty which is a possession common to the European nations compared with other races.
"His Sistine Madonna soars above us as our ideal of womanly beauty; and yet, strange to say, despite this universality, she gives to each individual the impression that, owing to some special affinity, he has the privilege of wholly understanding her. Shakespeare's and Goethe's feminine creations inspire the same feeling…
"All Raphael's works are youthful works. After finishing the Sistine Madonna, he lived only three years. At thirty-five years of age (and he did not survive much beyond this), the largest portion of human life is often still in the future. The events of each day continue to surprise us, and to seem like adventures. Raphael was full of these fresh hopes and anticipations when a cruel fate snatched him away. His last works betray the same youthful exhilaration in labor as his first. His studies from nature made at this time have a freshness and grace which, regarded as personal manifestations of his genius, are as valuable as his paintings. He was still in process of development… What in our later years we call illusions still enchanted him. The easy, untrammelled life at the court of the pope wore for him, to the last, a romantic glamour, and the admiration of those who only meant to flatter sounded sweet in his ears, even while he saw through it. Everything continued to serve him; with the gospel of defeat his soul was still unacquainted."
The Sistine Madonna, with the Virgin standing on the clouds in the midst of myriads of cherubs' heads, St. Sixtus kneeling on the left, and St. Barbara on the right, was painted in 1518 for the Benedictine Monastery of San Sisto, at Piacenza, from which it was purchased in 1754 by Augustus III., Elector of Saxony, for forty thousand dollars. It was received at Dresden with great joy, the throne of Saxony being displaced in order to give this divine product of genius a fitting home. It is said that the famous Correggio, standing before this picture, exclaimed with pride, "I too am an artist!"
Passavant says, "It was the last Virgin created by the genius of Raphael; and, as if he had foreseen that this Madonna would be his last, he made it an apotheosis."
It is interesting to sit in the Dresden gallery alone, before the Sistine Madonna, which has the face of the beloved Margherita, and note the hush that comes upon the people when they pass over the threshold. They seem to enter into the feelings of the artist. It is said that many a poor and lonely woman, bent with years, has wept before this painting.
The eyes of the Virgin look at you, but they do not see you. The eyes are thinking – looking back into her past with its mysteries; looking forward perchance into a veiled but significant future. These eyes, once seen, are never forgotten, and you go again and again to look at them.
Raphael's "Christ Bearing the Cross" (Lo Spasimo) is considered a masterpiece, from its drawing and expression. Some think it equal to "The Transfiguration." The ship which was carrying it to Palermo was lost with all on board. Nothing was recovered save this picture, which, uninjured, floated in a box into the harbor of Genoa. It is now in Madrid.
Another well-known work of Raphael is "St. Cecilia," listening to the singing of six angels, her eyes raised to heaven in ecstasy. A musical instrument is slipping from her hand while she listens, entranced, to playing so much more wonderful than her own. On her right are St. Paul and St. John; on her left Mary Magdalene, with St. Augustine. Cecilia was a rich and noble Roman lady who lived in the reign of Alexander Severus. She was married at sixteen to Valerian, who, with his brother Tiburtius, was converted to Christianity by her prayers. Both these men were beheaded because they refused to sacrifice to idols, and Cecilia was shortly after condemned to death by Almachius, Prefect of Rome. She was shut up in her own bath-room, and blazing fires kindled that the hot vapor might destroy her; but she was kept alive, says the legend, "for God sent a cooling shower which tempered the heat of the fire."
The prefect then sent a man to her palace, to behead her, but he left her only half killed. The Christians found her bathed in her blood, and during three days she still preached and taught, like a doctor of the church, with such sweetness and eloquence that four hundred pagans were converted. On the third day she was visited by Pope Urban I., to whose care she tenderly committed the poor whom she nourished, and to him she bequeathed the palace in which she had lived, that it might be consecrated as a temple to the Saviour. She died in the third century.
This masterpiece of color was sent to Bologna, having been ordered by a noble Bolognese lady, Elena Duglioni, for a chapel which she built to St. Cecilia. Raphael sent the picture to his artist friend Francesco Francia, asking that he "make any correction he pleased, if he noticed any defect." It is stated that Francia was so overcome at the sight of this picture that he died from excessive grief because he felt that he could never equal it.
Shelley wrote concerning this work, "Standing before the picture of St. Cecilia, you forget that it is a picture as you look at it, and yet it is most unlike any of those things which we call reality. It is of the inspired and ideal kind, and seems to have been conceived and executed in a similar state of feeling to that which produced among the ancients those perfect specimens of poetry and sculpture which are the baffling models of succeeding generations. There is a unity and a perfection in it of an incommunicable kind. The central figure, St. Cecilia, seems wrapt in such inspiration as produced her image in the painter's mind; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes lifted up, her chestnut hair flung back from her forehead: she holds an organ in her hands; her countenance, as it were, calmed by the depth of her passion and rapture, and penetrated throughout with the warm and radiant light of life. She is listening to the music of heaven, and, as I imagine, has just ceased to sing, for the four figures that surround her evidently point, by their attitudes, towards her, particularly St. John, who, with a tender, yet impassioned gesture, bends his countenance towards her, languid with the depth of his emotion. At her feet lie various instruments of music, broken and unstrung. Of the coloring I do not speak; it eclipses Nature, yet it has all her truth and softness."
Raphael was now loaded with honors. Henry VIII. urged him to visit England and become attached to his court. Francis I. was eager to make him court painter of France. Often the artist shut himself up in his palace, and applied himself so closely to his books and pictures that people said he was melancholy. He was so deeply interested in history that he thought of writing some historical works. He had planned and partially completed a book on ancient Rome, which should reproduce to the world the city in its former grandeur. He left a manuscript on art and artists, which Vasari found most valuable in his biographies. He sent artists into all the neighboring countries to collect studies from the antique. He loved poetry and philosophy.
Several artists lived in his home, for whom he provided as though they were his children. Among others in his house lived Fabius of Ravenna, concerning whom Calcagnini, the pope's secretary, wrote, "He is an old man of stoical probity, and of whom it would be difficult to say whether his learning or affability is the greater. Through him Hippocrates speaks Latin, and has laid aside his ancient defective expressions. This most holy man has this peculiar and very uncommon quality of despising money so much as to refuse it when offered to him, unless forced to accept it by the most urgent necessity. However, he receives from the pope an annual pension, which he divides amongst his friends and relations. He himself lives on herbs and lettuces, like the Pythagoreans, and dwells in a hole which might justly be named the tub of Diogenes. He would far rather die than not pursue his studies…
"He is cared for as a child by the very rich Raphael da Urbino, who is so much esteemed by the pope; he is a young man of the greatest kindness and of an admirable mind. He is distinguished by the highest qualities. Thus he is, perhaps, the first of all painters, as well in theory as in practice; moreover, he is an architect of such rare talent that he invents and executes things which men of the greatest genius deemed impossible. I make an exception only in Vitruvius, whose principles he does not teach, but whom he defends or attacks with the surest proofs, and with so much grace that not even the slightest envy mingles in his criticism.