■ ■ ■ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/raphaelinromeOOcart THE PORTFOLIO MONOGRAPHS ON ARTISTIC SUBJECTS WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS PUBLISHED MONTHLY No. 20 August , 1895 Raphael in Rome by JULIA CA R T WR 1 GHL (Mrs. Henry Ady\ London: SEELEY AND CO., LIMITED, ESSEX STREET, STRAND Sold by Hatchard, 187 Piccadilly Paris: Librajrie Galignani, 224 Rue de Rivoli. Berlin : A. Asher & Co., 13 Unter den Linden. New York : Macmillan & Co. Price Half -a- Crown nett THE PORTFOLIO. THE AUTOTYPE COMPANY, LONDON, Renowned for the excellence of its process of high-class BOOK ILLUSTRATION, Adopted by the Trustees of the British Museum, the Learned Societies, and the leading Publishers. Prices and- Specimens on application. AUTO-GRAVURE, The Autotype process adapted to Photographic Engraving on copper. Copies of Paintings by Holman Hunt, Edwin Douglas, Herbert Schmalz, Haigh Wood, F. 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Summer Song Duncan Camper!/ All Paris A-Wheel (Illustrated) Arsine Alexandre. Lights and Shadows . . . Benjamin 1 an! £> The Rector’s Hat (Illustrated, Noah Drools. The Case of the Guard- House Lawyer (Illustrated) George I. Tu'iia-n: The “ Scab ” Octane Thane/. Illustrations by C. S. Rlinkakt. A Ruined Faith-Doctor . . C. Ridgen-ay Van . Six Years of Civil Service Reform Thcouore Loosens. t The Amazing Marriage- Chaps. XXIX.— XXXI. . George Meredith. (To be continued throne r the Ye.\r.) The Point of View. London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO J St. Dunstan’s House, Fetter Lane, E.C to Mr. JOHN HART, 6 Arundel Street, Strand, Lor dor I RAPHAEL IN ROME Author o, By JULIA CARTWRIGHT (MRS. HENRY ADY) “ Sacharissa" “Madame," “ Jules Bastien-Lepage" &c. LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED, ESSEX STREET, STRAND NEW YORK, MACMILLAN AND CO. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES PAGE The Madonna di Foligno. Vatican Frontispiece Parnassus. Vatican to face 24 Cardinal Bibbiena. Madrid Gallery ,, ,, 5 0 The Donna Velata. Pitti Gallery ,, ,, 56 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT Poetry, by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission 7 Theology, by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission 1 1 Fortune, by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission 13 Apollo and Marsyas, by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission 15 Adam and Eve, by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission 19 Group from the “Dispute of the Blessed Sacrament,” by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission 21 Group from the “School of Athens,” by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission 22 Calliope, Study for the “ Parnassus,” by Raphael. Albertina. From a photograph by Braun, Clement & Cie, by permission 23 Group from the “ Heliodorus.” Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission 26 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Madonna di Casa d’Alba, by Raphael. Hermitage, St. Petersburg. From a photograph by Braun, Clement & Cie, by permission 28 Study for the Madonna di Casa d’Alba. Lille 31 The Toilet of Venus ; drawing by Raphael. Malcolm Collection 33 Group from the “Attila,” by Raphael. Vatican 37 The Deliverance of St. Peter from Prison, by Raphael. Vatican. From a photo- graph by D. Anderson, by permission 39 Study, by Raphael. Formerly in the Reveley Collection 47 Balthasar Castiglione, by Raphael. Louvre. From a photograph by Braun, Clement & Cie, by permission 53 Mercury, by Raphael. Farnesina. From the engraving by Marc Antonio .... 61 Jupiter and Eros, by Raphael. Farnesina. From the engraving by Marc Antonio 65 Venus and Cupid, by Raphael. Front the engraving by Marc Antonio 67 Joseph telling his Dreams, by Peruco del Vaga, after Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission 69 Leo X. and Cardinals, by Raphael. Pitti Gallery, Florence. From a photograph by Braun, Clement Sc Cie, by permission 71 RAPHAEL IN ROME PART I RAPHAEL AT THE COURT OF POPE JULIUS II i 5°8 — 1 5 1 3 Raphael summoned to Rome by the Pope — His letter to Francia — He paints the frescoes of the Stanza della Segnatura — ‘ The Disputa — School of Athens — Parnassus — The frescoes of the second Stanza — Expulsion of Heliodorus — Mass of Bolsena — Easel pictures of this period — The Madonna di Casa d' Alba — della Sedia — d.i Foligno — Portrait of Pope Julius II . — Engravings of Marc Antonio from Raphael's designs — Death of Julius II. “ Rome,” wrote Erasmus to Cardinal Grimani, “is the centre of the world. In Rome is liberty. In Rome are the splendid libraries. In Rome one meets and converses with men of learning. In Rome are the magnificent monuments of the past. On Rome are fastened the eyes of all mankind.” To this Rome, for which the needy scholar sighed under the gray skies of England, Raphael of Urbino now came in the flower of his youth and genius. For the rest of his short life the capital of Christendom was his home and the scene of his splendid labours. Here, for the first time, he came under the full influence of classical art, and in the presence of that ancient world his genius blossomed out in a thousand new and varied forms. He reached Rome early in the autumn of 1508. Such, at least, is the received tradition, based in part upon the following letter, which he addressed from Rome to Francia, the friend and teacher of his own master, Timoteo Viti : — “Dear Messer Francesco, — I have just received your portrait, which Bazzotto brought me in good condition, without injury of any kind, and 6 RAPHAEL IN ROME for which I thank you exceedingly. It is very fine, and so lifelike that at times it almost deceives me. I seem to be with you and to hear your voice. I beg you to pardon my delay in sending you my own, but serious and incessant labours have prevented me from painting it with my own hand as I had agreed. I might, indeed, have had it painted by one of my assistants and only touched it up myself, but this would hardly have been fitting, although I know that I cannot hope to equal your work. Forgive me, I pray, since you, too, have known what it is to be deprived of liberty and bound to work for patrons who afterwards Meanwhile, by the hand of the bearer, who returns in six days, I send you another drawing, one of the Nativity, differing in some respects, as you will see, from the painting which you were good enough to praise so warmly, speaking of it as you have done before of my other works, in a way that makes me blush. I am ashamed to have nothing better to offer you, but beg you to accept this trifle in token of the obedience and love which I owe you. If in return I may receive one of your Judith , I shall keep it among my most dear and precious things. Monsignore il Datario is anxiously expecting his little Madonna and Cardinal Riario his large one, as you will hear from Bazzotto. And I shall behold them with the same delight and satisfaction which I have felt in contemplating your other works, never having seen any that are fairer and more devout or better painted. Be of good courage, act with your wonted prudence, and believe that I feel your sorrows as if they were my own. Continue to love me as I love you, with my whole heart. — Your devoted servant, “ Raffaelle Sanzio. “ Rome, the yh of September , 1508.” The original MS. of this letter was found by Malvasia among the papers of the Lambertini family at Bologna, and first published by him in 1678. Its genuineness has been questioned, not without reason. The style has been modernised and the signature of Raffaelle Sanzio was never employed by the painter. But its contents agree with Vasari’s statement that Raphael and Francia exchanged letters and portraits, and although it is unlikely that Raphael was ever at Bologna, Francia, we know, painted several pictures for Duke Guidobaldo, and may himself have visited Urbino. The Roman prelate, to whom Raphael alludes, had Poetry , by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson , by permission. RAPHAEL IN ROME 9 lately accompanied the Pope to Bologna, and the expulsion of Francia’s patrons, the Bentivogli, and the destruction of the painting of Judith with which he had adorned their palace, must have been fresh in the master’s mind. But whether this letter is genuine or not, the date of Raphael’s arrival is proved by a passage in his report on ancient monu- ments, where, writing a few weeks before his death, in the spring of 1520, he says that he has not yet been twelve years in Rome. The decoration of the Vatican Stanze was the first work upon which his powers were to be displayed. From the moment of his accession, Julius II. had declared that he would not live in the rooms which had been polluted by the crimes of his detested predecessor, Alexander VI. and had taken up his abode in the upper story of the palace. Close to the rooms which he now occupied were four halls built by Nicholas V., but still remaining in an unfinished state. The new Pope, bent upon making his reign memorable, summoned a number of distinguished artists to complete the internal decoration of these apartments on a scale corre- sponding with the vastness of his ideas. Perugino, Bramantino, Peruzzi, and Sodoma were all employed in the Vatican during 1507 and 1 508, while Bramante was rebuilding St. Peter’s and Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. Now Raphael was summoned to take his part in decorating the Stanza della Segnatura, the hall where official documents received the papal seal. On the ceiling of this room, which Sodoma had already adorned with mythological subjects, the young master of Urbino painted his famous allegorical figures, Theology , Poetry , Philosophy and Law. Jul ius II. was so well pleased with these works, that he bade his new artist proceed with the decoration of the walls. At the same time, with characteristic impetuosity, he dismissed the other artists whom he had hitherto employed, and ordered the paintings which they had already executed to be destroyed. All that Raphael, the most courteous and modest of men, could obtain, was the preservation of the frescoes which Sodoma, Peruzzi, and Perugino had respectively painted on the ceilings of the different halls. He now applied himself with ardour to his great task. The amount of time and thought which he devoted to the pre- paration of his cartoons is shown by the large number of studies still to be seen in the principal collections of Europe, at Milan and Lille, in the Louvre and Albertina, at Oxford and at Windsor. He took counsel, IO RAPHAEL IN ROME there can be little doubt, with all the humanists whom he knew, alike with his old Urbino friends, Castiglione, Bembo, and Bibbiena, and with the poets and scholars whom he found at the papal court. A letter which he addressed to Ariosto, who visited Rome in 1509, asking his advice as to the introduction of certain personages in his frescoes was extant in the last century, and is mentioned by Richardson in his ‘ Treatise on Painting. He recalled old memories of his Florentine and Umbrian days, and learnt new lessons from the antique marbles around him. And out of all these different elements, his wonderful intelligence evolved a grand scheme of decoration, embracing the whole realm of human knowledge. 1 he four medallions of the ceiling supplied the keynotes of his design. In the library of the ducal palace at Urbino, the students of I heology and Philosophy, of Law and Poetry were pictured on the walls as described by Raphael’s father in his poem. These four branches of learning were now represented by the painter in the form of fair women, attended by winged children in every variety of attitude. Theo- logy robed in red and green and crowned with oak-leaves — the badge of the Della Revere house to which Julius II. belonged, holds an open book in one hand, while with the other she points to the assembly of the Saints on the wall below. An expression of heavenly peace and gentle- ness rests on her face, and the tablets in the hands of the boys at her side bear the words : Notitia divinarum rerum. Philosophy is seated in a marble chair, clad in antique costume. Her features are of classic mould* her deep, far-seeing eyes seem to know the meaning of all things. In her hands she bears the books of nature and of morals, and the tablets of the genii are inscribed with the motto : cans arum cognitio. Justice wields a drawn sword in her right and holds a pair of scales in her left hand, while the open book borne aloft by four cherubs reveals her name : Jus suum Unicuique. Last and fairest of all, Poetry, winged and robed in blue, with a laurel wreath on her brow, and book and lyre in her hand, lifts her dark eyes to heaven, radiant with a divine rapture. She has heard the voices of the gods and caught the breath of their inspiration. Virgil’s line, Numine afflatur , is written on the tablets of the laughing children, who float on the rosy clouds at her feet. This figure should be compared with the fine drawing at Windsor which bears so Theology , by Raphael. V atican. From a photograph by D. Anderson , by permission. RAPHAEL IN ROME 13 marked a likeness to the later Florentine Madonnas and the St. Katherine, and was clearly Raphael’s first thought for the Poesia. The forms and draperies of these allegorical figures remind us in some ways of Perugino’s Fortune , by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson , by permission. frescoes in the Hall of the Cambio, and of Fra Bartolommeo’s Saints, but, side by side with these reminiscences of the past, we see the fruit of the new impressions that were daily crowding upon his mind. The marble RAPHAEL IN ROME mask that we see carved upon one chair, the many-breasted Diana of the Ephesians which adorns another, are borrowed trom antique statues, while the stately form and face of Philosophy, the calm severity of her air speak even more plainly of a classic model. Four oblong pictures, each of them connected with these allegorical figures, fill up the spaces between the medallions. Next to Theology we have the Fall of Man , next to Poetry the Triumph of Apollo over Marsyas , below Justice, is the Judgment of Solomon, and under Philosophy, Natural Science , popularly known by the name of Fortune , is represented in the form of a woman bending earnestly over a celestial globe. Raphael’s version of these subjects is as original as it is dramatic. Apollo striking the chords of his lyre with victorious certainty, while the crown is held out to him by a listening shepherd, the distracted mother flinging herself forward to avert the stroke about to fall upon her innocent child, impress our imagina- tions with the same sense of power, and no earlier master has ever equalled the ideal beauty of this Adam and Eve, whom we see bending all too willing ear to the tempter, as he looks down from the tree of knowledge, in the shape of a lovely woman. But we must pass on to the larger frescoes which cover the walls, these great companies of saints and poets, of scholars and legislators in which Raphael has given utterance to the noblest aspirations of Italian culture. On the right wall, under Theology, he painted his grand vision of the Church triumphant and militant, popularly known as the Dispute of the Blessed Sacrament. Above — the Father in Glory, the Son lifting His pierced hands, and the Dove descending out of heaven, in the sight of the great multitude which no man can number, patriarchs of old, apostles, and martyrs. Below — the altar set up on earth, and grouped around this mystic symbol of Christ’s presence with His Church, the saints and confessors of all ages, Gregory, Ambrose, Jerome with his lion, and Augus- tine holding the Civitate Dei in his hand, Aquinas in his black and white Dominican garb, and the gentle Franciscan Doctor, Bonaventura, in cardinal’s hat and robes. In that august company, painter and poets are not forgotten. On the left we see the face of Fra Angelico, the saintly friar of S. Marco. On the right, close to the great Pope Innocent III. is the poet of the Divina Commsdia. And there, just behind Dante, Raphael has boldly placed another Florentine, that famous Prior Apollo and Many as, by Raphael. Vatican. F> om a photograph by D % Anderson, by permission. RAPHAEL IN ROME n of S. Marco, who had died as a heretic at the stake twelve short years before, the beloved teacher of his own friend Fra Bartolommeo, Girolame Savonarola. The animation of the scene offers a marked contrast with the calm serenity of the Church at rest. There a deep hush of worship reigns in the circles of the blessed, here the servants of God go to and fro and contend actively for the faith once delivered to the saints. Some are reading and writing, others are expounding their doctrines to the scholars at their feet, one fair boy goes forward, with outstretched hand and a look of ardent conviction on his face, to adore the host. And in the background, behind these groups full of life and movement, rise the unfinished walls of Bramante’s new basilica of St. Peter. On the left wall of the Stanza, opposite the Disputa, Raphael painted his second great fresco, Eke School of Athens. On the one side the saints of the Church Catholic, on the other the heroes of Greek philosophy. Here, under a portico of the noblest Renaissance architecture, adorned with statues of Pallas and Apollo, and with bas-reliefs of classical myths, the great teachers of the old world are assembled. In the centre of the picture, at the top of the broad flight of steps leading to the palace of wisdom, are Plato and Aristotle, the representatives of the two rival schools of thought. Plato, the sage of all others to whom the Italian humanists turned as the fount of truth and knowledge, is pointing up- wards to that heaven which is the home of the divine idea. Aristotle, the teacher of practical wisdom, stretches out his hand towards earth which is the abode of man. Around them are other philosophers, each with the traditional appearance and special attributes by which he was known to the men of the Renaissance. Close at Plato’s side, Socrates, easily recognised by his ungainly form and rugged features, reasons with Alcibiades and Xenophon. On the steps below, Diogenes the Cynic, clothed in rags with his wooden bowl behind him, reclines apart from the rest, brooding sullenly over his tablets. Pythagoras, the teacher of arithmetic, forms the centre of a group on the left. On the right, Archimedes, surrounded by a group of admiring scholars, stoops down and draws geometrical figures on the ground. Ptolemy, wearing a crown on his head, according to the common tradition which confused the geo- grapher with the kings of Egypt, and bearing a terrestrial globe in his hand, stands facing Zoroaster, who holds a celestial globe. Between these B RAPHAEL IE ROME 1 8 chief figures, a host of others are moving to and fro, ascending and descending the steps. Some take part in the discussion, others are wrapt in silent thought. One young scholar walks briskly in, with a load of books under his arm, another leaves the hall with empty hands. A handsome youth turns away from the cynic Diogenes to seek for truer teaching, and on the opposite side, a father, holding a lovely child in his arms, listens to the words of Plotinus, the teacher whom Ficino describes as charming even women and babes by the sweetness of his discourse. Raphael has introduced several portraits of his contemporaries among the groups of the foreground. In the bald head and striking features of Archimedes, we recognise the likeness of his fellow-citizen Bramante, who supplied the architectural scheme of the composition. Zoroaster is said to represent the painter’s friend Castiglione. Behind him we see Raphael’s own portrait side by side with that of Sodoma, whom with delicate courtesy he here acknowledges as his associate in the decoration of the hall. The Urbino master himself looks older and more manly than in the Uffizi portrait ; the long chestnut locks and refined features are the same, but a light moustache fringes his upper lip, and the head has gained in power and character. The tall and princely youth in the long white mantle edged with gold, is Francesco, Duke of Urbino, who visited Rome with his bride, Eleanora Gonzaga, early in 1510, and as the nephew of Julius II., and the friend and patron of Raphael, naturally occupies a prominent place. The curly-headed boy on his left, is his young brother-in-law, Federico Gonzaga, the son of Isabella d’Este, who had been sent to the Vatican at the age of ten, as a hostage in his father’s stead. It was, we learn from a letter lately discovered in the Mantuan archives, at the express request of His Holiness that this spirited boy, the old Pope’s pet and plaything, was introduced by Raphael in his fresco. All of these fifty-two figures are brought together in a perfectly balanced and admirably arranged composition. Each is in itself a masterly study of modelling and expression. When we consider the stately unity of the whole design, the surpassing beauty of each separate group, and the significance and grace of every detail, we begin to realise the marvellous genius, the rare skill and industry which produced such great results. Each figure in that vast assembly, every look and gesture embodies some separate system of teaching, some new scientific truth. The Adam and Eve, by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph , by D. Anderson , by permission. RAPHAEL IN ROME 2 I history of philosophy, in fact, is here set forth, and for the first time in the records of art, abstract ideas are clad in forms ot life and beauty. Besides the studies of separate figures which are to be seen in the Albertina and other collections, a complete cartoon for this fresco, drawn in black chalk with the greatest care and accuracy by the master himself, is preserved in the Ambrosian Library. Here the architectural back- Group from the “ Dispute of the Blessed Sacrament by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson , by permission. ground has not yet been put in, and the sage leaning on his elbow in the foreground, as well as the portraits of Raphael and Sodoma, are absent. The two remaining walls of the room were broken by large windows, but Raphael cleverly contrived to adapt his designs to the space at his disposal. Under the figure of Poetry, he painted Apollo and the Muses, resting in the laurel groves, by the waters of Castaly, as pure and sweet an 2 2 RAPHAEL IN ROME idyll as ever poet dreamt, in the days when the world was young. This bright Sun-God, chanting to the music of his violin, is generally said to have been taken from Lorenzo de’ Medici’s famous Greek gem, but it recalls still more vividly the Apollo and Marsyas painted by Timoteo Viti on one of Isabella d’Este’s plates in the Correr museum. At his side, along Group from the “ School of Athens by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson , by permission. the green slopes of Parnassus, the Muses wander hand-in-hand or rest in the laurel shade, Calliope in her white robe musing deeply over some impassioned theme, Erato bearing the seven-stringed lyre in her hands. On the summit of the mount, the poets of epic fame meet together. Homer lifting his sightless eyes to heaven recites his verses to the listening group, and Virgil, looking round at Dante, directs him towards Apollo. Below, the lyric poets of the past mingle with singers of the present day. Pindar and Horace converse with Ariosto and Tebaldeo, RAPHAEL IN ROME 23 with Boccaccio and Sannazzarro. Petrarch and Corinn join the group where Sappho rests at the foot of the hill. Three parts of Raphael’s scheme were now complete. He had repre- Calliope , Study for the “ Parnassus ,” by Raphael. Albertina. From a photograph by Braun , Clement A Cie, by permission . sented the philosophers of old discussing the eternal problems of man and nature, the saints in heaven and earth joining in one great act of worship, and the poets of past and present ages listening to the music of Apollo’s song. Now he had to set forth the majesty of the law which, RAPHAEL IN ROME resting on the foundations of religion and reason, builds up the structure of human society. This time he chose a different method. In the arched space above the windows he painted three allegorical figures, Fortitude, with a lion at her side and an oak-branch at her hand, Prudence looking into a mirror that reveals her double face, and Temperance, with a bridle in her hand and a fair boy at her feet, pointing to heaven as the source of all grace and virtue. Underneath this group, on either side of the window, he represented Justinian in his robes of imperial purple, delivering the Pandects to his ministers, and Gregory XI. handing the Decretals to his secretary. In this aged pontiff* we recognise the portrait of Julius II., who had lately returned from his unsuccessful campaign against Bologna, and had vowed never to trim his beard until the French were driven out of Italy. Among the members of his suite are three Cardinals, Giovanni and Giulio de’ Medici and Alexander Farnese, all of whom lived to become Popes in their turn. These paintings, as an inscription on the Parnassus records, were finally completed towards the close of 15 1 1, in the eighth year of Julius the Second’s pontificate. At the same time the doors and woodwork of the hall were adorned with intarsias executed under Raphael’s direction, by Fra Giovanni da Verona, and the richness and beauty of the whole excited general admiration. In some ways, the frescoes of this first Stanza surpass all the later ones in point of interest. No doubt Raphael afterwards attained a far higher degree of technical perfection, his composition became more skilful, his knowledge of pictorial effect more complete. But in the later Stanze he had to paint subjects that were suggested by others, and was no longer free to follow his own invention. Here then we have the fullest expression of Raphael’s mind. We see how thoroughly he had caught the spirit of his times and shared the hopes of the Italian humanists. His whole conception was inspired by a deep sense of the unity of human thought, and of the harmony that exists among the wisest and best of all ages. In his eyes there is no dividing line between the old world and the new. Plato and Augustine alike tell of the same City of God, and the poets and philosophers of Greece, and the saints and doctors of the Christian Church bear witness to the same bather of all. That dream, we know, was cherished by the finest intellects of the Renaissance, it was the common heritage of the scholars of Venice a rn a . RAPHAEL IN ROME 2 5 and Florence, of Urbino and Rome, but its fairest and most enduring record is to be found in the frescoes of this Vatican chamber. Raphael’s reputation in Rome was now established. The Pope, delighted with the success of his experiment, lavished honours and caresses upon his favourite, and bade him paint the walls of the next room without delay. God protects His Church was the theme here assigned to him, and the subjects, there can be little doubt, were chosen by the Pope himself. In obedience to his commands, Raphael painted the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple of Jerusalem , as described in the Second Book of Maccabees, in evident allusion to the deliverance of Italy from the French invaders. Here all is swift and instantaneous movement. The courts of the temple are thronged with terrified women and children, and the invaders plunder the Holy of Holies, while the high priest is on his knees before the altar. But already the hand of God is stretched out to save. Angelic messengers rush through the air to strike the spoilers down, and Heliodorus himself lies prostrate at the feet of a celestial rider in golden armour. In the midst of this scene of horror and violence, Pope Julius appears, a venerable and majestic figure, borne in his chair of state and attended by his cardinals. The splendid- looking bearer, walking first, is Marc Antonio Raimondi, the great engraver, who had already entered into close relations with Raphael, while the man behind him is probably Baldassare Peruzzi, whose decorations may still be seen on the ceiling of the room. On the vaulted space over the windows, Raphael next represents the miracle wrought at Bolsena in 1263, when a German priest, who doubted the truth of the Blessed Sacrament, saw blood flow from the host at the moment of consecration. The altar is raised on a flight of steps, and the priest bows his head in trembling awe at the wondrous mystery. The kneeling acolytes behind him and the crowd below, look up with eager faces, intent on the miracle that is happening before their eyes. At the other end of the altar, Pope Julius kneels, attended by cardinals and bishops, among whom we recognise Cardinal Riario, the President of the Sacred College. Below, a row of Swiss guards in their rich liveries look on with faces full of surprise and curiosity. Their heads are masterpieces of portraiture, and their rugged vigour offers a marked contrast with the refined features and subtle expression of the courtly prelates above. 26 RAPHAEL IN ROME By this time Raphael had become intimate with Sebastiano del Piombo, who was working at Agostino Chigi’s villa on the Tiber, and had learnt the methods of Venetian artists from this new comrade. The influence of Sebastiano’s example accounts for the rich colour, the depth of tone and vigorous modelling which meet us here, and surpass all that Raphael had hitherto accomplished. This splendid work has for- Group from the “ Heliodorus." Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson , by permission. tunately suffered less damage than the Heliodorus, and remains one or the finest examples of fresco-painting in existence. The Mass of Bolsena was finished in 1512, during the lifetime of Julius II. The fresco of Attila in the same room was probably already in contemplation when the old Pope fell ill. On the eve of All Saints he visited the Sistina and saw Michelangelo’s ceiling, which was unveiled on that occasion, but after that he seldom left his bed. He still held audiences in his sick- RAPHAEL IN ROME 27 room, and kept himself alive by sheer force of will. But since the Stanze which Raphael was decorating, were close to the chamber where the Pope lay dying, the work was naturally interrupted for a time, and the painter had more leisure to attend to other commissions. The great task upon which he had been engaged, since he came to Rome, had not absorbed all his faculties, and several important panels were executed during these four years. One of the earliest was the picture of the Child waking out of sleep and reaching out both arms to His mother, known as the Madonna di Loreto. This popular com- position, which has been so often copied and engraved, was originally painted for Cardinal Riario, but, after hanging for two hundred years in S. Maria del Popolo, it was removed to the sanctuary of Loreto, and disappeared towards the end of the last century. Another version of the subject may be seen in the graceful little picture of La Vierge au Diademe in the Louvre, which still passes under Raphael’s name, but is in reality the work of his favourite pupil, Giulio Romano. To the same hand the Aldobrandini , or Garvagh Madonna , in the National Gallery must also be ascribed. Like the charming little Madonna belonging to Miss Hertz, it was evidently an early work of Giulio’s, painted under the influence and from the design of Raphael. Three genuine Madonnas, however, all of them masterpieces in their way, belong to this period. The earliest of the three is the Madonna di Casa d' Alba, said to have been painted for Julius II., and presented by him to the Olivetan monks of Nocera. This picture afterwards passed into the Duke of Alva’s collection at Madrid, and was sold in 1836 to the Czar of Russia. Both in shape and composition, this Virgin closely resembles the later Florentine Madonnas. Mary holds a book in her hand and is seated in a meadow full of violets and wild flowers, leaning against the trunk of a gnarled oak-tree that is throwing out new shoots, an evident allusion to the renewed prosperity of the Della Rovere family. The boy-Baptist kneeling on the grass with the cross in his hand and the Christ clinging to His mother’s side, recall the children of the Cardellino, but the Virgin’s antique costume and finely draped robes bear witness to the painter’s Roman studies, and in the background the Tiber is seen winding through the distant Campagna. Two drawings for this Madonna, both of them showing the same marked likeness to the RAPHAEL IN ROME 28 St. Katherine of the National Gallery and the Eve of the Segnatura ceiling, are in the Lille Gallery. On the same sheet is a sketch for another round panel, the Madonna della Sedia. This most popular of all Ma- The Madonna di Casa d' Alba, by Raphael. Hermitage, St. Petersburg. From a photograph by Braun, Clement Id Cie, by permission. donnas belonged to the Medici collection as early as 1589, and was probably painted for Cardinal Giovanni, about the same time as the frescoes of the Stanza di Eliodoro. The handsome dark-eyed mother. RAPHAEL IN ROME 29 wearing a striped handkerchief on her head and clasping the Child in her embrace, is taken from some Roman model, it may be the same beautiful woman whose face in after-years inspired the painter with the noblest of all his Madonnas. The colouring is as rich and glowing as that of the Mass of Bolsena itself, and the skill with which the group is fitted into the round has not impaired its simple charm. The third picture was a grander and more elaborate work, the Madonna di Foligno, which Raphael executed for the papal chamberlain, Sigismond Conti, shortly before that prelate’s death in 1512. A native of Foligno and a writer of sufficient note to be mentioned in Giovanni Santi’s poem, the aged bishop wished to commemorate his" deliverance from a shell that exploded near him during the bombardment of that city. At his bidding Raphael painted the great altarpiece which adorned the Franciscan church of Ara Cceli, for fifty years, and was then removed to Foligno. After being taken to Paris and there transferred to canvas, the picture was brought back to Italy and finally placed in the Vatican Gallery. The conception is as original as it is noble, and recalls the opened heavens and sublime vision of the Disputa. Our Lady appears, no longer throned under a canopy, as in the traditional Umbrian or Florentine type, but floating on the clouds of heaven, encircled by a golden halo of cherub-heads. On the flowery sward below, St. Francis, kneeling at the Baptist’s feet, fixes his ardent gaze on the celestial vision, and on the other side, St. Jerome commends the donor to the Virgin’s protection. Between these two groups, a boy-angel, whose lovely face reminds us of the winged children of the Segnatura ceiling, stands look- ing up at the Madonna and forms as it were a link- between the saint on earth and the seraph host in heaven. “ Non si puo fare ,” writes Vasari, “ ne piu grazioso ne meglio." In the background, on the heights above the Tiber, are the towers of Foligno. A shepherd is seen feeding his flock in a green mountain valley, while the fire-ball rushes through the air and the rainbow of mercy spans the clouds. ■ The exquisite beauty of the Virgin’s face, the playful charm of the joyous Child, above all, the magnificent portrait of the kneeling chamberlain, lifting his worn, wrinkled face to heaven, aroused the admiration of all the painter’s con- temporaries and have made this picture memorable among Raphael’s Madonnas. 3 ° RAPHAEL IN ROME It is easy to understand how eager all who saw this living likeness of Sigismond Conti, were to have their portraits painted by Raphael’s hand. Unfortunately, most of those which he executed in the reign of Julius II. have perished. That of his cultured friend, Bindo Altoviti, the young merchant of Siena, now in the Munich Pinacothek, is so badly damaged and has been so much disfigured by restoration, that some of the best critics doubt if the work is genuine. That of Federigo Gonzaga, to which Castiglione alludes in a letter written after Raphael’s death, has disappeared. The only portrait of the period in which the master’s hand can be recognised with absolute certainty is that of the Pope himself, in the Tribune of the Uffizi. This portrait must have been painted towards the close of Julius II.’s life, soon after the fresco in which he figures as Gregory IX. The great old man is leaning back in his arm-chair, in purple cap and red robe, “looking so exactly like himself,” writes Vasari, “that one trembles before him as if he were still alive.” His head is bent downwards and his brows are marked with deep furrows, but every line of the emaciated face reveals the restless energy of his nature, the passionate force of his will. His days of toil and strife are nearly over, his life draws rapidly to its close, and he sits there like some old lion brooding over his past conflicts, but ready, if need be, to turn and rend the foe. The cartoon for this wonderful portrait is in the Corsini palace at Florence, and a replica, scarcely to be distinguished from the original, is preserved in the Pitti gallery. Among other works which bear witness to the painter’s ceaseless industry and to the marvellous versatility of his genius, are the numerous designs which he executed at this period, for Marc Antonio Raimondi. The Bolognese engraver, after being trained in the school of Francia and practising his art at Venice and Florence, came to Rome in 1510 and practically entered Raphael’s service. A close friendship sprang up between the two men, and the fine series of prints that appeared under their joint signature, were the result of that enthusiastic admiration of antique art and innate sense of beauty which drew them together. Among the firstfruits of their partnership were the noble engraving of Lucrezia Romana and the well-known Massacre of the Innocents. Some of Raphael s drawings for the last-named plate may be seen in the Albertina, but as a Study for the Madonna di Casa d' Alba. Lille RAPHAEL IN ROME 33 rule he probably only supplied the original motive of the design and left the rest to the engraver’s imagination. The pen drawing of Venus looking into a mirror, attended by a satyr and group of cupids, and The Toilet of Venus; drawing by Raphael. Malcolm Collection. nympha dropping flowers into a basket, now in the Malcolm collection, may well have been intended for Marc Antonio’s use. This study, which Raphael himself has rarely equalled in grace of line and classical feeling, c 34 RAPHAEL IN ROME and was probably a recollection of some antique bas-relief, such as the painter was constantly noting down and afterwards employing in his com- positions. The sale of Marc Antonio’s engravings was carried on, Vasari tells us, under the management of one of Raphael’s assistants, Baverio Carrocci of Parma, and soon became a lucrative and extensive business. Other artists followed in Raimondi’s steps and a school of engravers sprang up, who were solely employed in reproducing the designs of Raphael. The wide circulation which their prints enjoyed, naturally made his name famous, and contributed not a little to the supremacy which his style acquired in all parts of Italy. But while Raphael was daily reaping new laurels, his chief patron, the Pope, who had brought him to Rome, lay on his death-bed. On the 13th of January, 1513, a Mantuan courtier informed Isabella d’Este that in obedience to her commands, Messer Raphaello da Urbino had at length begun a charcoal drawing of her son, Signor Federico, in the jewelled cap and gold brocade suit which he wore on the day that he rode, at the Pope’s side, to the opening of the Lateran Council. On the 15th of January, he assured the anxious mother that the portrait of the young prince was making progress. But four days later, Messer Raphaello returned Federico’s cap and mantle, begging Her Excellency to pardon him, since in the present state of affairs he had not the courage to go on with her son’s portrait. The Pope’s condition had been pro- nounced desperate, and all was in confusion at the Vatican. The next day Jul ius II. breathed his last, amidst the lamentations of the Roman people who honoured his just rule and admired his imposing personality. He had reigned with a strong hand and made the Papacy a power in Europe, but in the eyes of posterity he will chiefly be remembered as the Pope who founded St. Peter’s and called Michelangelo and Raphael to Rome. PART II RAPHAEL AT THE COURT OF LEO X. 1 5 1 3 — 1 5 2 ° Election of Leo X. — Raphael paints the frescoes of the Attila and St. Peter in the Stanza di Eliodoro — Is appointed architect of St. Peter's after Bramante's death — Letters to Simone Ciarla and to Castiglione — The Galatea — Sibyls of S. Maria della Pace — Chigi chapel — Raphael's architectural works — He is appointed inspector of antiquities by Leo X. — Paints the frescoes of the Stanza dell' Incendio — Portraits of Bibbiena , Castiglione , &c . — La Donna Velata — St. Cecilia — The Madonna di San Sisto — The Cartoons — Works executed by his scholars — Frescoes of the Farnesina — The Loggie — Raphael buys a house in the Borgo Nuovo — Rivalry of Sebastiano del Piombo — Corre- spondence of the Duke of Ferrara's agents — The Transfiguration — Death of Raphael — His burial in the Pantheon. The conclave met on the 4th of March, a fortnight after the death ot Julius II. A week later, Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici was elected Pope, and took the name of Leo X. He had been made a cardinal when still a boy, and now at the age of thirty-seven became the head of the Church. But the choice was a popular one. The new Pope was a genial and kind-hearted man, fond of ease and luxury, but cultivated and liberal- minded. “Let us enjoy the Papacy, since God has given it to us,” he said to his brother Giuliano on the day of his election, and the remark was characteristic both of the man and of his tastes. A series of brilliant festivities inaugurated the new reign of peace . and splendour. The friends of learning rejoiced to see a son of the magnificent Lorenzo in the chair of St. Peter and men of letters flocked to Rome. “ Once Venus reigned, then Mars, now Pallas,” was the motto inscribed by the wealthy Sienese banker, Agostino Chigi, on the triumphal arch which he erected in honour of Leo the Tenth’s coronation. c 2 36 RAPHAEL IN ROME Raphael soon found that he had lost nothing by the death of his former patron. His own friends were raised to high office in the new Pope’s household. Bibbiena was made a cardinal, Pietre Bembo became papal secretary. Giuliano de’ Medici had known him in the old Urbino days, and did not forget him now. From the first, Leo X. honoured Raphael with marks of especial favour. He had known Michelangelo from his boyhood, and admired his mighty genius, but as he told Sebastian del Piombo, the great sculptor was too terrible a man for him, and the gentle-souled painter of Urbino was far more to his taste. He employed Buonarroti to build the facade of S. Lorenzo, and wasted whole years of his life in quarrying marbles at Carrara, but he kept Raphael at his side and bade him proceed at once with the frescoes of the second Stanza. Attila’s Retreat was the subject chosen by Julius II. for the third fresco of the Stanza di Eliodoro, and a copy of the design which Raphael had already prepared may still be seen in the Louvre. This was now altered to suit the taste of the reigning pontiff, who was introduced as St. Leo, arresting the march of the barbarian invader. On the right, Attila and his Huns are seen, starting back in terror at the apparition of St. Peter and St. Paul, with drawn swords, in the heavens. On the left, the Pope enters, wearing the triple tiara, and mounted on the white horse which he had ridden at Ravenna, and raising his hand, tells the conqueror to come no further. The massive features of Leo X. are rendered with admirable truth, and the Cardinals who attend him, clad in contemporary costume, are evidently portraits of well-known personages at the papal court. Attila’s terror-stricken gesture, the sudden confusion of h:s cavalry and the swift rush of the avenging saints are all realised in the most vivid and dramatic manner. The action of each separate figure is made to harmonise with the whole, and every detail adds to the general effect. The flying banners of the moving host and the flames of the burning houses heighten the solemn impression, and beyond the ancient monuments of imperial Rome, the Coliseum and aqueducts are seen rising out of a woodland landscape, bounded by the mountains of the Campagna. Last of all, on the wall opposite to the Mass of Bolsena , Raphael painted the Deliverance of St. Peter from Prison , in significant allusion to the memorable escape of Leo X. from the hands of his French captors, after the battle of Ravenna. In the central space above the windows, the RAPHAEL IN ROME 37 delivering angel is seen through the prison bars, stooping down to wake St. Peter, who lies bound between two soldiers. On the right, the same bright form leads the apostle by the hand, down the steps, and past the sleeping guards, while on the left a soldier, bearing a lighted torch, rushes up the opposite flight of stairs to give the alarm. The most striking thing in this picture is the fine effect produced by the three separate Group from the “ Attilaf by Raphael. Vatican. lights, the angel whose radiance illumines the darkness of the prison, the flaming torch in the soldier’s hand and the crescent moon which hangs over the sleeping city. The way in which these different lights are reflected in the steel armour of the guards, roused the admiration of Raphael’s contemporaries to the highest pitch, and made Vasari declare this fresco to be the master’s most wonderful work. The theme of divine intervention which Raphael had illustrated on the walls of this room, was repeated in the four Old Testament 38 RAPHAEL IN ROME subjects from the story of Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, which adorn the ceiling. All tour are now irreparably ruined, but as far as it is possible to judge in their present state, they were chiefly the work of Giulio Romano and Francesco Penni. As in the case of the former room, the panelling was enriched with intarsias by Fra Giovanni di Verona, and the decoration completed, some years later, by the addition of Caryatides and other allegorical figures painted in chiaroscuro by Raphael’s younger pupil, Perino del Vaga. Raphael’s frescoes in the Stanza di Eliodoro were finished in August, 1514, as recorded on a tablet placed below the Deliverance of St. Peter. The date marks an important stage in the painter’s development. Fie had made the secrets of Venetian colouring his own, and had reached a degree of technical perfection beyond all to which he had hitherto attained. No living master, not Michelangelo himself, could surpass him in dramatic vigour, in the power of giving life and reality to a narrative, and of combining unity of composition with variety of indi- vidual action. Henceforth no heights were beyond his reach. He stood supreme and without a rival in the field of pictorial art. LTnfortunately just at this moment, when powers of brain and hand alike were ripe, his activities were diverted into new channels, and his time and strength frittered away in a multitude of labours that were beyond the strength of any one man. Bramante, whose health had long been failing, died on the 11th of March, 1 5 14, recommending Raphael to the Pope as his successor with his last breath. Of late years, the two masters had been brought into intimate relations, and Raphael seems to have acted as Bramante’s assistant, in designing several of the palaces and churches in the new streets of the Vatican quarter. He had already, it is evident, devoted considerable attention to the study of architecture, and the papal bull which confirmed his appointment expressly says that he is held excellent, not only as a painter but also as a builder. Leo X. lost no time in acting upon Bramante’s suggestion, and on the 1st of April, 1514, Raphael was appointed chief architect of St. Peter’s, at a yearly salary of 300 ducats. Giuliano di San Gallo and Fra Giocondo of Verona, the architect of the Pont-Neuf in Paris, were given him as assistants, but since both were advanced in years and died within a short time, they RAPHAEL IN ROME 39 proved of little use. The natural pride which the young painter felt in this high office and the ardour with which he entered on his new duties, are pleasantly shown in two letters which he addressed, during the summer of 1514 to his uncle, Simone Ciarla, and his friend Castiglione. The old uncle at Urbino was growing restless at his nephew’s prolonged absence, and had written, urging him to return and take a wife and settle down in P he Deliverance of St. Peter from Prison , by Raphael. Vatican. From a photograph by D. Anderson , by permission. his old home. Raphael, in his reply, gently soothed down the old man’s anxiety, and with delightful simplicity explained the reasons which kept him in Rome and made him prefer this city to Urbino. As for marriage, he would have been well content to wait, but since his friend Bibbiena, the newly-made Cardinal of Santa Maria in Portico, wished him to marry a relative of his own he had agreed to this proposal and could not break his word. The whole letter, in its bright and happy tone, is eminently 40 RAPHAEL IN ROME characteristic of Raphael’s sweet and sunny nature. It was a proud moment in his life. At thirty-one years of age, he had reached a position of the highest honour, and was not only painter to His Holiness, but architect of St. Peter’s, “the grandest church in the world.” As yet he did not feel the burden of excessive work, which was ere long to bring his life to a premature end. A future of splendid activity and unclouded happiness opened before him, and with high hopes and light heart he wrote this affectionate letter to his old uncle at Urbino : — “ Dearest in the place of a Father, — I have received your letter, which is very dear to me as a proof that you are not displeased. It would indeed be foolish to vex yourself at my silence, if you think how tiresome it is to write when one has nothing to say. Now that the matter is of importance, I answer at once and will tell you all that I have to say upon the subject. First of all, as to taking a wife, I must tell you with regard to her whom you wished to give me, that I am perfectly content, and thank God continually that I neither married her nor any one else, and in this I was wiser than you. I am sure you will agree with me, that if I had done as you wished, I should not be where I now am, since at the present time, I have property in Rome worth 3,000 gold ducats, and an income of fifty gold crowns, His Holiness having given me a salary of 300 ducats, for superintending the works of St. Peter’s, which I shall enjoy as long as I live. And I am sure to earn more from other sources, and am paid whatever I like to ask for my work. And I have begun to paint another room for His Holiness, which will bring me 1,200 gold ducats, so that you see, my dearest uncle, I do honour to you, to my whole family, and to my country. But none the less, I always keep the thought of you in my heart, and when I hear your name, feel as if I heard that of a father. And do not complain of me if I do not write, for I have far more reason to complain of you, who sit, pen in hand, all day and yet allow six months to go by, between your letters. But for all that I am not as angry with you as you seem to be with me. I have wandered from the subject of marriage, but to return to it, you must know that Santa-Maria-in-Portico wishes to give me a relative of his own, and that with your leave and that of my uncle the priest, I have promised to do what His Reverence desires. I cannot break my word, for RAPHAEL IN ROME 4 r we are on the point of settling this matter, and I shall soon be able to tell you more. Have patience, since this affair promises so well, and if it falls through, I will do as you wish, and tell Francesco Buffa that if he has proposals to make, I have plenty of others on my own account, and can find a fair maiden in Rome, of most excellent reputation, whose friends are ready to give me 3,000 gold crowns as her dowry, and that in house-property in Rome, where 100 ducats are certainly worth more than 200 in Urbino. As for remaining in Rome, I cannot live anywhere else for some time to come, on account of the work of St. Peter’s, now that I am in Bramante’s place. But what city in the world can compare with Rome ? what task is nobler than the building of St. Peter’s, the first temple and the grandest structure in the world ? The cost will exceed a million in gold, and the Pope has ordered 60,000 ducats, a year, to be spent on the work and can think of nothing else. He has given me as colleague a very learned old friar, over eighty years of age, who cannot live long, but is a man of marvellous wisdom, so that I may learn what- ever fine secrets in architecture he has to teach, and become perfect in this art. His name is Fra Giocondo, and every day the Pope sends for us and discusses the plans of the building, for some time. I hope you will go and see the Duke and Duchess and tell them this, for I know they will be glad to hear that one of their servants is doing them honour, and commend me to their Highnesses, as I commend myself ever to you, and to all my friends and relatives, most of all to Ridolfo, who bears me so true an affection. “Your Rafael, painter in Rome.” “ On the 1st of July, 1514 .” This letter was duly shown to the Duke and Duchess, as Raphael desired, for a hundred years later, it was found among the papers of the last Duke of Urbino, and brought to Rome, where it was seen by Richardson, early in the last century. The other letter is written in a more polished style, and in a courtly language befitting the accomplished gentleman to whom it was addressed. It is of especial interest, as giving us a glimpse into the mind of Raphael, and revealing the aims and aspirations of his artist-soul. 42 RAPHAEL IN ROME “ My Lord Count, — I have made several designs of the subject which you suggested, and all who have seen them seem to be well satisfied, unless they are mere flatterers. But, I confess, I am not satisfied myself, because I fear they will not satisfy you. I send them and hope that you will choose any one which is to your taste. Our Lord, the Pope, has been pleased to lay a heavy burden on my shoulders, that is to say, the direc- tion of the works of St. Peter’s. I hope I shall not sink under the load, especially since the model which I have made, pleases His Holiness, and has been commended by many learned men. But my thoughts soar higher. I long to find out more about the fine forms of ancient monu- ments, and I know not if my dreams may not end as the flight of Icarus ! Vitruvius has enlightened me on many points, but has not shown me all that I want to know. As for the Galatea , I should count myself a great master if half the kind things which your Lordship writes were true, but your words show your love for me, and I tell you that, if I am to paint a beautiful woman, I must see several, and have you at my side to choose the fairest. But meanwhile, since good judges and fair women are both of them rare, I make use of a certain ideal that is in my mind. If it has any artistic excellence I know not, but I try hard to reach it. Let me have your commands. From Rome.” This letter, which was first published at Venice in 1554, must have been written late in the summer of 1514, when Raphael had finished the wooden model of St. Peter’s, which received the Pope’s approval, that August. At Leo the Tenth’s suggestion, he altered Bramante’s original design from a Greek to a Latin cross, and prepared plans of the building on a more extensive scale than ever. The nave was to be longer, the cupola larger, new arcades and side-chapels, and a spacious portico were to be added. But these vast schemes were never carried out. Bramante’s choir and transepts, built as they had been with the utmost haste to satisfy the impatience of Julius II., were found to be insecure, and the new architect’s time was spent in strengthening the foundations and supporting the pillars which his predecessor had raised. Want of funds delayed the progress of the work, and Raphael died before any attempt had been made to carry out his proposals. After his death, the plans were again altered, and few, if any traces of his work are to be seen in the present church. RAPHAEL IN ROME 43 The letter to Castiglione fixes the date of one of Raphael’s finest works, the fresco of Galatea which he painted for his wealthy friend Agostino Chigi in a hall of his villa in the Lungara. As early as 1510, he had designed two superb bronze dishes for the Siena banker, and according to Vasari, supplied plans for the stables where Leo X. was enter- tained in so royal a fashion by his splendid host. Sebastian del Piombo had already painted a fresco of Polyphemus, the love-sick Cyclops, piping under the plane trees on the Sicilian shore, and in the same hall Raphael now represented the milk-white Galatea driving her team of dolphins on the waves. The composition was evidently inspired by Poliziano’s verses, and many of the details, the shell chariot of Galatea, the trumpet- blowing Tritons riding their sea-horses, and the Loves shooting arrows from the sky, were directly borrowed from antique bas-reliefs. But more than this, he has, for once in his life, caught a breath of the true Greek spirit. This laughing nymph, with her fair locks and purple drapery floating on the breeze, these merry Cupids sporting on the green waves, are instinct with all the careless gladness, the joy of actual living that was the charm of the old world. Just as the Venus of Botticelli helps us to realise how the Florentines of the earlier Renaissance looked upon the myths of Hellas, so Raphael’s Galatea represents the classical world as it appeared in the eyes of the humanists of Leo the Tenth’s age. But even here the master was compelled to leave a great part of the work to his assistants. The figure of Galatea herself was painted entirely by his own hand, but in the coarser forms and muscular limbs of the Tritons we recognise the work of Giulio Romano and his comrades. These assistants had a still large share in the next fresco which Raphael painted for Agostino Chigi, the much-injured Sibyls of Santa-Maria-della-Pace. Here the four Sibyls and their attendant genii are represented in a single group, above the archway leading to the Chigi chapel. On the left, the youthful nymph of Cumaea lifts her impassioned gaze to heaven and her Persic sister writes her message on a tablet at her side. On the right, the Phrygian Virgin turns to read the mystic writing of a scroll held up before her, and the aged and wrinkled Sibyl of Tibur looks out sadly into the dark future. Vasari and many critics after him have described these noble figures as directly borrowed from the Sistina frescoes. But although the motive is the same, these Sibyls and genii have little in 44 RAPHAEL IN ROME common with the majestic creations of Michelangelo. Their beauty is of a far more human type, their graceful forms and draperies are modelled in the true Raphaelesque manner. The master of Urbino doubtless learnt many lessons from his mighty rival, and often thanked God that he lived in Michelangelo’s days, but, after his wont, he assimilated the qualities which attracted him in his own fashion and added the strength and robustness of the Tuscan to his own grace and sweetness. Another somewhat similar fresco, of the prophet Isaiah, was painted about this time by Raphael on a pillar in the church of S. Agostino, for the Luxembourg prelate Gbrlitz, the Corycius senex of the Roman humanists, whom he often entertained in his gardens on the Quirinal. But this figure was entirely re-painted by Daniele da Volterra, and it is hard to discover even a trace of Raphael’s work in the fresco. For Agostino Chigi he also designed a sepulchral chapel in S. Maria del Popolo, as well as the mosaic decorations of the interior, that were executed by Venetian workers in 1516. Here he went back to Dante’s Convito for his inspiration. In the summit of the cupola, he represented the Eternal in the glory of heaven, and, at His feet, seven angels setting the planets in motion at His bidding. Fiant luminaria in firmamenti cceli. Several drawings of these subjects are to be seen at Lille and Oxford, among others a spirited sketch of the Angel of Jupiter , with both arms high above his head, pointing up to God. The statue of Jonas in the same chapel was executed by the sculptor Lorenzetto from Raphael’s design, but can hardly have been modelled, as Passavant thinks, by the great master’s own hands. On one occasion, however, he seems to have made an attempt in this direction. Sebastian del Piombo’s friend, the saddler Lionardo Borgherini, writing from Rome in November, 1516, tells Michelangelo to look to his laurels, since Raphael of Urbino has actually modelled a child in clay for the sculptor Pietro d’Ancona. And, three years after the painter’s death, Castiglione writes to inquire if Giulio Romano still possesses the marble boy modelled by Raphael, and offers to give him whatever sum he chooses to name for the precious work. There was, indeed, hardly a single branch of art to which this most versatile of masters did not turn his attention. At this period architec- tural works certainly occupied a considerable part of his time. Following RAPHAEL IN ROME 45 in Bramante’s steps, he adopted the purely classical style, and, as he told Castiglione, studied ancient monuments with Vitruvius for his guide. The Italian version of the Latin writer made by the learned old humanist, Fabio Calvo of Ravenna, “at the prayer and in the house of Raffaelle di Urbino,” with marginal notes in the painter’s own hand- writing, may still be seen in the Munich library. But life was too short for all that he meant to do, and he died before he was able to put his theories into practice. Unfortunately, the little which he was able to accomplish in this direction has for the most part perished. The fine palace in the Borgo Nuovo, which he built for his friend the Pope’s Chamberlain, Brancantonio dell’ Aquila, was pulled down in the last century to make room for the colonnade of St. Peter’s. His plans for the facade of S. Lorenzo have been lost, and even his own house, which had been built by Bramante, but embellished by himself, has been altered out of all recognition. In November, 1515, he was summoned to Florence by Leo X., to give his advice as to the completion of S. Lorenzo, but eventually Michelangelo’s design was accepted, and Raphael returned to Rome. Vasari’s account of this brief visit to his old haunts, is borne out by a deed recording the purchase of a house in the Via Sistina, which was signed in his absence by his assistant, Baverio Carrocci, Raffaello di Urbino licet absente. It was probably on this occasion that he supplied Bishop Pandolfini with plans for his new palace in the Via San-Gallo. The building was only erected after his death, but is still one of the finest Renaissance palaces in Florence. On the 27th of August, 1515, Raphael was appointed Inspector of antiquities in Rome, and a papal bull was issued, empowering him to purchase any ancient marbles in the city and surrounding country, and forbidding the destruction of any inscribed stones without his leave. The painter gladly availed himself of the facilities thus afforded him to study the classical remains that were being daily discovered, and, as far as possible, to arrest the wholesale destruction of ancient monuments which he laments in his letter to Leo X. Vasari tells us how when the Baths of Titus were first excavated, Raphael and his assistant Giovanni da Udine hastened to the spot, and were amazed at the beauty of the painted grotteschi then brought to light. And both Castiglione and Bembo, we know, frequently accompanied the painter on his explorations 46 RAPHAEL IN ROME in the ruins of old Rome. But neither his architectural studies, nor the ardour with which he devoted himself to archaeological pursuits, were allowed to interfere with the progress of the Vatican frescoes. The Stanza di Eliodoro was no sooner completed, than the Pope desired him to adorn the next room with scenes from the pontificates, of the third and fourth Leo. The work, we learn from the artist’s letter to his uncle was begun in June, 1514, but only completed in the summer of 1517. Times had changed since the days when the expulsion of the French from Italy had been the theme of Raphael’s art, and it was the Pope’s new ally, Francis I. who now figured as Charlemagne re- ceiving his crown from the Head of the Church. On the opposite wall, Leo III. was represented, clearing himself by oath from the false charges brought against him, in the presence of Charlemagne. The choir of St. Peter’s is the scene of both incidents, and the cardinals of Leo the Tenth’s court appear in both frescoes, ranged before the high altar in their robes of state. “ The Stanze of His Holiness’s palace which Raphael has painted,” wrote Bembo to Cardinal Bibbiena, “ are beautiful, not only by reason of his rare and excellent art, but because of the large number of prelates which he has introduced.” But although the master himself may have painted a few of the portraits, the chief part of these frescoes, as Vasari states, was executed by his pupils, working under his superintendence. Giulio Romano’s hand is evident in the third fresco, where the rout of the Saracens in the battle of Ostia is vigorously set forth, and Leo X. and his Cardinals, Giulio de’ Medici and Bibbiena, stand on the sea-shore, receiving the submission of the captives. But by far the finest of the series is the famous composition which gives its name to the room, the Incendio del Borgo. Here Leo IV., the same Pope who defeated the Saracens at Ostia, is seen on the balcony of the Vatican, miraculously arresting a fire which had broken out in the Borgo, by making the sign of the cross. The steps of the old basilica of St. Peter’s are crowded with fugitives, and in the foreground the terrified inhabitants are escaping from their houses. One old man is borne, like Anchises, on the shoulders of his stalwart son, and a mother drops her child from an open window into his father’s arms. On the right, men and women pour jars of water on the flames, and in the centre, a group of frightened mothers and children stretch out their Study , by Raphael. Formerly in the Reveley Collection. RAPHAEL IN ROME 49 arms to implore the help of the Holy Father. Here Raphael makes a new departure, and leaving the historical and allegorical style in which he excelled, gives us a subject from the life ot the people, such a scene as might be witnessed any day in the streets ot Rome. And in this new field he shows himself once more a master of his art and a designer of the highest order. But, magnificent as the composition is, the execu- tion, it must be owned, is of a distinctly inferior kind. We are still in the presence of Raphael’s creative faculty, we own the vivifying, controlling force of his imagination, but we feel that another hand has carried out the conception. Some of the separate groups are remarkably fine, but in the exaggerated muscles and violent foreshortening of others we see the influence which Michelangelo was already exerting upon Raphael’s scholars. The master himself, distracted as he was by an infinite variety of labours, only sketched out the composition and left the execution of the cartoons to his assistants. For instance, the well-known Uffizi drawing of the water-carrier, with her finely-moulded form and flying draperies, is evidently Giulio Romano’s work, while Raphael’s original design, a slight sketch in black and white chalk on blue paper, is in the Morelli Collection at Bergamo. Even the study of nude figures in the Albertina, which is said to have been sent by Raphael to Albert Diirer, was drawn by Giulio Romano. On the other hand, most of the pen-and- ink drawings of wrestling figures that have been preserved in public and private collections are Raphael’s own work, and were probably studies for the battle of Ostia or the fresco of the victory of the Milvian Bridge, which his scholars painted, after his death, in the Hall of Constantine. Many of these groups are of great interest, revealing as they do the ease and mastery of his pencil, and the skill with which he could depict all the varying shades of passion and hatred, ot triumph and despair. To the same period we may ascribe the beautiful drawing of figures carrying vases, formerly in the Reveley Collection, a design which, for exquisite grace and lightness of touch, ranks among the finest examples of Raphael’s mature work. While the frescoes of the Stanza dell’ Incendio were still in course of execution, Raphael was called upon to finish the building of the Loggie, and to decorate a neighbouring corridor, which, however, fell in during the reign of Clement VII. The chiaroscuro figures of Apostles with D 5 ° RAPHAEL IN ROME which he and his scholars at the same time adorned the anteroom of the Stanze, known as the Sala dei Palafrenieri, were entirely re-painted in the last century. Still more to be deplored is the destruction or concealment of the paintings ot / T enus and Cupid, with which he decorated the bath- room of Cardinal Bibbiena, in the upper story of the Vatican. These wonderful little pictures were painted on a black and red ground, in the style ot antique gems, and are described as marvels of elegance and delicacy. Unfortunately the room which they adorn has long been closed to the public, and the dainty loves and fantastic devices of birds and flowers which Raphael and his friend designed with so much thought and care are hidden under a wooden wainscoting. During these early years of Leo the Tenth’s reign, Raphael painted the portraits of most of the chief personages at his court. One of the first in point of date, as well as one of the finest and best preserved, is that ot Cardinal Bibbiena in the Madrid gallery. The marked difference that exists between this picture and the other portrait of Bibbiena in the Pitti, which has always passed as Raphael’s work, has led more than one critic to reject the old tradition, and declare the Madrid portrait to be the likeness of some other prelate. M. Muntz, for instance, has suggested that Alidosi, the favourite of Julius II., may be the Cardinal here represented. But when Raphael came to Rome, Alidosi was no longer young, and he died at Ravenna, stabbed by the Duke of Urbino, some years before this picture was painted. If we compare the two portraits carefully, we shall see that the features are in reality the same, only that the Madrid picture represents the man in the prime of life and vigour, while in the other he appears broken in health and prematurely aged. The Pitti portrait in fact, was painted several years later, when Bibbiena was already suffering from an incurable disease, and is either the work of Raphael’s scholars, or the copy of a lost original by his own hand. No such doubt impairs the value of the Madrid picture. This handsome prelate, in his cape of red watered silk and lawn sleeves, is the bel Bernardo of Urbino days, the witty author of La Calandra and wily diplomat of Pope Leo’s court. The blue eyes and chestnut hair, the long aquiline nose, the very smile that plays about the clever mouth, agree with all that we know of this able and cultured man of the world, who was also the intimate friend of Raphael. When the Cardinal died, a few months after the painter, he Gl too lend. RAPHAEL IN ROME 5 left this portrait as his most valued possession to Castiglione, who took it with him to Spain, where it must have remained after his own death. Another distinguished humanist, Tommaso Inghirami, the librarian of the Vatican and friend of Erasmus, known in literary circles by his surname of Phasdrus, was painted by Raphael, sitting at his writing-desk with his pen in his hand and his eye turned upwards, as if in search of some new inspiration. Unluckily, the original of this vigorous and impressive work remains hidden away in the palace of the Inghirami at Volterra, and is only known to most of us by an inferior copy in the Pitti. The Pope’s brother, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, the best and most popular of all his house, had known Raphael at Urbino, and, when he married a Princess of Savoy, he gave the painter a post in his house- hold. This prince returned to Rome with his bride in the spring of 1515, and, before he left to take command of the papal forces, he employed Raphael to paint his portrait. A few months afterwards, he died at Fiesole, on the 17th of March, 1516, to the grief of all his friends in Rome. Bembo, writing to Cardinal Bibbiena, who was with Giuliano in his last hours, speaks affectionately of the lamented duke, and gives some interesting particulars as to the portraits upon which Raphael was engaged. “To-morrow,” he writes on the 3rd of April, “I am going with Raphael, Navagero, Beazzano, and Baldassare Castiglione, to see Tivoli once more, not having been there for twenty-seven years. We mean to see both old and new, and all that is beautiful in the country round. I go to please Messer Andrea, who leaves for Venice the day after Pasquino ” — the 25th of April, when all the wits in Rome wrote satires and hung them on the famous torso of Pasquin, at the corner of the Braschi Palace. Both of these distinguished Venetian scholars, Navagero and Beazzano, who travelled in such good company to Tivoli, had their portraits painted by Raphael, and the canvas in which they appear side by side now hangs in the Doria Palace, a masterpiece of vitality a-nd character. The portrait of the poet, Antonio Tebaldeo, is the subject of Bembo’s next letter. “ Raphael, who desires to be respectfully remembered to you,” he writes on the 14th of April, “has painted our Tebaldeo in so lifelike a manner, that he is not so exactly himself in actual existence as in this i) 2 5 2 RAPHAEL IN ROME picture. For my part I never saw so perfect a likeness. You may imagine what Messer Antonio says and thinks of it, and indeed he has every reason to be proud of it. In point of likeness, the portrait of Messer Baldassare Castiglione and that of our good and lamented duke — God grant him eternal bliss ! — might be by the hand of an apprentice, compared with this of Tebaldeo. I am very envious and really think I must have my own portrait painted next. I had just written the last words when Raphael came in — I think he must have guessed what I was writing about him — and begged me to ask you to send him a description of the other subjects which are to be painted in your bath-room, since those which you sent last will be finished this week. Per Dio ! this is no joke ! And now comes Messer Baldassare, who sends you word that he is going to spend the whole summer in Rome, not to spoil a good custom, and more especially because it is Messer Antonio’s wish.” A week later, Bembo wrote again in the same lively strain. This time he begged the cardinal to give him a little marble Venus, for which Raphael could not find room in his newly-painted stufetta , but which Bembo himself had long coveted for his own camerino , saying that he would place her there, between her father and brother, Jupiter and Mercury 1 “ Raphael, whom you love so well,” he adds, “ has encouraged me to make this request.” And again, “ I am sure you will not give your Raphael the pain of a refusal.” Bibbiena, however, quite declined to see the matter in this light, and refused to part from his Venerina even at the prayer of his well-beloved Raphael. Both the portraits of Tebaldeo and of Giuliano de’ Medici have perished, but that of Castiglione still exists, and is worthy of the master who painted it and of the accomplished personage whom it represents. This distinguished-looking gentleman, in gray doublet and black velvet collar and sleeves, with the white lace ruffles, carefully trimmed beard and indescribable air of refined elegance, is the very model of a perfect courtier. How highly it was prized by Castiglione himself, we learn from the beautiful verses which he puts in the lips of his young wife, who tells her absent lord how in her loneliness Raphael’s picture is her one comfort, and how at the sight of this living image her infant child stretches out his little arms and lisps the word “ Father.” Castiglione took the portrait with him to Spain, but after his death it went back to Mantua, and passed with the Gonzaga collection to Balthasar Castiglione, by Raphael. Louvre. From a photograph by Braun, Clement iff Cie, by permission. RAPHAEL IN ROME 55 England and Amsterdam. There it was copied by Rembrandt and Rubens, and afterwards found a home in the Louvre. Yet one more portrait belongs to this period, the Donna Velata of the Pitti, which, long labelled as a copy by a Bolognese artist, is now universally admitted to be a masterpiece of Raphael’s art. The picture is of rare interest. It is the only woman portrait of his Roman days, and represents, there can be little doubt, the face of his beloved. The fables of the painter’s love for the baker’s daughter have long been rejected as a modern invention, and the portraits that formerly went by the name of the Fornarina, are now known to have no connection with Raphael. The Improvisatrice of the Tribune and the Dorotea of Berlin are the work of Sebastian del Piombo, and the Fornarina of the Barbe- rini palace was painted by Giulio Romano. This half-naked woman, with the bold, black eyes, is plainly some handsome model who sat to Raphael’s scholars. There is no reason whatever to assume that she was the painter’s mistress, and as careful inspection will show, the bracelet bearing the words “ Raphael Urbinas,” which is commonly supposed to be a proof of this theory, was added by another hand and formed no part of the original work. The picture is a coarse and vulgar one, with none of the peculiar characteristics of Raphael’s drawing, and utterly lacking the distinction that is the supreme quality of his art. Again, Vasari’s stories of the master’s excesses may be dismissed as idle calumnies, of which no evidence is to be found in contemporary records, and which are not even mentioned in Sebastian del Piombo’s malicious letters. Raphael, judged by the standard of his times, led a blameless life, wholly devoted to his art, and too much absorbed in the work of creation to be eager to form new ties. Maria Bibbiena, the wife whom his friend the cardinal wished to give him, died before the wedding day, and lies buried by his side in the Pantheon. But the story of the woman whom he loved remains wrapt in obscurity. In two sonnets which he wrote on the back of his studies for the Disputa , now in the British Museum, he addresses the lady of his love as one far above him, and vows that he will never reveal her name. And Vasari tells us that he loved one woman to his dying day, and made a beautiful and living portrait of her, which Matteo Botti, of Florence, kept as a sacred relic. Cinelli, writing in 1677, mentions this portrait as still in the house of 5 6 RAPHAEL IN ROME the Botti, but soon afterwards it must have passed into the Medici Collec- tion, where it remained, at the Grand Duke’s villa of Poggio Reale, until 1824. P is painted on canvas, like the portraits of Castiglione and the two Venetians, in the Doria palace, with the same pearly shadows and the same warm golden glow. The maiden is of noble Roman type, her features are regular, her eyes dark and radiant. The white bodice that she wears is embroidered with gold, and the sleeves are of striped yellow damask. A veil rests on her smoothly parted hair and a string of shining black beads sets off the whiteness of her finely-modelled neck. Here, then, we have the woman whom Raphael loved to the end. Whether she was the lady of the sonnets, and his verses are written in the book that she clasps to her heart, or the Mamola bella whom he mentions in the letter to his uncle, we cannot tell. But we know that the same beautiful face meets us again in the royal-looking Magdalen, who stands at St. Cecilia’s side in the Bologna altar-piece, and in that most divine of all his Virgins, the Madonna di San Sis to. Both of these were painted at this period. The first was ordered, towards the end of 1513, by Cardinal de’ Pucci, for his kinswoman, Elena Duglioli, but only finished in 1515. This noble Bolognese lady had heard a voice from Heaven, bidding her raise a chapel to St. Cecilia, and it is this incident which is recorded in Raphael’s picture. He has painted the Virgin- martyr holding an organ in her hand and standing in a woodland landscape with four other saints. On the right, the Magdalen holds her vase of precious ointment. On the left, St. Paul is leaning, lost in meditation, on the hilt of his sword. Behind them, St. Augustine and a youthful St. John listen for the organ melodies that will soon fill the air, but St. Cecilia herself has caught the sound of other voices, and he. own instrument drops from her hand, as, lifting her rapt face to heaven, she sees the golden light breaking in the sky and hears the angel-song. Unfortunately, this fine picture was taken to Paris in 1798, and there transferred to canvas and entirely re-painted, so that the design is now the only part of Raphael’s work remaining. The Madonna di San Sisto was painted entirely by Raphael’s hand, in the same transparent colour, with the same light and rapid touch as the portraits of this period. We notice the same silvery tones, the same absence of dark shadows, as in the Castiglione and the Donna Velata. No ^ J2, RAPHAEL IN ROME 57 studies for this picture are known to exist, and the red chalk outline on the canvas itself was probably the artist’s sole preparation for the work. It was painted for the friars of San Sisto of Piacenza, possibly at the request of Antonio de’ Monti, Cardinal of S. Sisto, and sold by the same community, in 1753, to Augustus III. of Saxony for ^9,000. In the Madonna di Foligno , the artist had represented the Virgin throned upon the clouds and the saints kneeling upon earth. Now he went a step further and painted the Holy Mother and Child, descending out of highest heaven, adored by saints in glory, and framed in by green altar hangings. The curtains have been drawn back suddenly and we see the vision that is for all time. On the right, the venerable Pope Sixtus lifts his devout old face to heaven, on the left, a youthful St. Barbara smiles down at the twin boys who have strayed from the angel band, and resting their elbows on the parapet below, look up with big wistful eyes. The surface has been damaged by the restorer’s hand, the colour has peeled off in places and St. Barbara’s face has been badly injured, but still the picture retains a certain sublime beauty which makes it unlike all other Madonnas. The Child, cradled in H is mother’s arms and looking out with grave wonder on the world, has less of innocent mirth than Raphael’s other babies and more of the majesty of the Incarnate God. This Virgin’s face, with the calm broad forehead and the mystery about the eyes, is that of the unknown maiden whose features sank so deeply into Raphael’s heart, but raised and glorified above all earthly thoughts. And, as before, old memories are mingled with the new. The pure line and flowing drapery, the perfect rhythm of the whole, recalls the Madonna of the Gran Duca, and recollections of the earliest and fairest of his Floren- tine Virgins come to blend with this immortal dream of his last Roman years. The same grand and impressive character marks the cartoons which Raphael designed for the tapestries of the Sistine Chapel. On the roof, Michelangelo had painted the story of the Creation and of the Fall, and the types which foreshadowed the world’s redemption. Florentine and Umbrian masters had adorned the walls with scenes from the life of Christ. Now Leo X., desiring to complete the decoration, asked Raphael to design a series of tapestries setting forth the acts of the apostles, Peter and Paul, and the foundation of Christ’s kingdom upon 58 RAPHAEL IN ROME earth. The first payment for these works was made on the ist of June, 1515, the last on the 21st of December, 1516, by which time the ten cartoons were completed and sent to Flanders, to be woven into tapestry. Three of the set, Lhe Stoning of St. Stephen , Lhe Conversion of St. Paul , and his Escape from Prison at Philippi , have been lost. The other seven remained at Brussels and were bought by Charles I. in 1630 at the suggestion of Rubens. To-day these famous works hang in South Kensington Museum and their subjects are familiar to us all. In the Stanze, Raphael had to deal with new material, here he takes the old Bible stories and sets them forth with a higher degree of artistic perfec- tion than had ever been done before. In their present faded and muti- lated condition the simplicity and grandeur of the composition is what strikes us most. All superfluous matter is put aside, and the central thought stands out as completely as in the noblest creations of classical art. The way in which the swift interchange of thought and the struggle of contending passions is realised, is even more remarkable than the con- summate drawing and admirable symmetry of the groups. The colours employed are very few and simple. Instead of the subtle gradations of tone, the delicate hues and pearly shadows of his pictures, we have broad masses of light and shade, and such tints as the weaver is best able to re- produce. Vasari says that Raphael painted the whole of the cartoons with his own hand, but his pupils, it is plain, had a large share in the execution. Giulio Romano’s muscular limbs and opaque shadows are frequently seen. Giovanni da Udine is said to have painted the cranes and shells in the foreground of the Draught of Fishes , and Penni and others were no doubt employed on the draperies and architectural details. None the less, there is far more of Raphael’s own work in the cartoons than in most of the other paintings which he executed during the last few years of his life. The Carmine frescoes, which he had studied so atten- tively in his youth, and had lately seen again at Florence, supplied him with the grouping of Phe Charge to Peter , and the figure of St. Paul Preaching at Athens. The details of the pagan sacrifice in the temple courts at Lystra were directly borrowed, like so many of Raphael’s com- positions, from antique bas-reliefs, and the faithfulness with which the columns and porticoes of classical buildings were reproduced, bore witness to his archaeological researches. All his old love for the beauty of hill and RAPHAEL IN ROME 59 shore found expression in the exquisite scenes on the banks of the Jake of Gennesareth, with their wide horizons and idyllic sense of repose. And in the risen Lord appearing to the chosen few, in the boat, and on the shore, he has given us an ideal of majesty and tenderness worthy to rank with Lionardo’s Christ. The cartoons occupy a unique position in the history of the Renaissance, standing, as they do, at the close of that memorable phase of human thought, and on the brink of the coming decadence. All the efforts of former artists seem to culminate in this one great achievement of Raphael’s prime. The extraordinary popularity which the works enjoyed, the influence which their types exercised upon future painters, must be ascribed not only to their high artistic merit, but to the exact- ness with which every detail of the sacred story is followed. They reflect the new spirit of inquiry and Bible-reading that was already abroad, and remind us that while Raphael was painting the cartoons, Luther was preaching against papal indulgences at Wittenberg. As, in the Vatican frescoes, this great master had set forth the creed of the middle ages and the ideals of the Renaissance, so in the cartoons he foreshadowed the new theology of the Reformation. And the cartoons also mark the final stage of Raphael’s artistic development. The promise of his wonderful youth had been fulfilled. From first to last, his career had been one of unbroken progress. He had gone from strength to strength, mastering new problems and learning new lessons at every step, and yet in a marvellous way, retaining his own individuality through all. Now he entered on the last and closing phase of his life. His creative powers were as splendid, his designs as magnificent as ever, but, except in a few rare instances, the execution of his conceptions was of necessity left to his assistants. And so, in these works of his closing years, a marked decline became visible. The pictures that issued wholesale from his workshop, were signed with his name, but they bore no trace of his hand. It was utterly beyond the power of any one artist to execute the orders which poured in upon him from all sides. Kings and cardinals counted them- selves fortunate if they could obtain a picture designed by this illustrious master. The Madonna del Pesce was painted at the request of one of his oldest patrons, Cardinal Riario, for a church at Naples. The famous picture of Christ bearing the Cross was sent to Sicily, and adorned the 6o RAPHAEL IN ROME altar of the church of St. Maria dello Spasimo at Palermo until it was chased by Philip IV. of Spain. The Holy Family, known as the Perla , is supposed to have been executed for the Count of Canossa in 1518, and after passing with the Gonzaga Collection to Whitehall, was bought at the sale of Charles the First’s pictures for the King of Spain. The Visitation , also at Madrid, was ordered by the papal chamberlain, Brancantonio dell’ Aquila, for the church of his native town, and the young St. John in the Tribune of the Uffizi is said to have been executed for Cardinal Colonna. The little picture of the Vision of Ezekiel, painted, in 1518, for Count Ercolani of Bologna and now in the Pitti, is of especial interest. Here Christian and pagan motives are curiously blended together, and Jehovah is seen like the Olympian Jove riding upon an eagle and ox, and upborne by angels in his flight through space. But it the design clearly springs from Raphael’s brain, the execution is as certainly that of Giulio Romano. All of these works bear the stamp of the same creative mind, and were consequently accepted by an uncritical age as painted by Raphael’s own hand. Fifty years ago, the revival of a truer taste led modern critics to include the master of Urbino in the sweeping condemnation which they passed upon his school. He was held responsible lor the decadence that set in after his death, and his very name became a word of reproach. But the new criticism has repaired the wrong, and has taught us to discriminate, at least in a measure, between the evil and the good, between the scholars and the master. The two great decorative works of Raphael’s last years were the frescoes of the Farnesina and of the Vatican Loggia. At Chigi’s request, he adorned the open colonnade of his villa, afterwards the property of the Farnese princes, with scenes from the myth of Cupid and Psyche. The tale of Psyche’s love and of the wrath of Venus was displayed on the span- drels of the ceiling, in ten separate pictures, and the intervening spaces above the arches were decorated with amorini , bearing the emblems of the gods, the trident of Neptune and the sword of Mars. Each subject was framed in garlands of fruit and flowers, with a background of blue sky, and two large frescoes, the Council of the Gods and the Marriage Feast of Cupid were painted by Giulio Romano and Francesco Penni on the flat ceiling above. The way in which monotony has been avoided and the difficulties presented by the construction of the building have been over- Mercury , by Raphael. Farnesina. From the engraving by Marc Antonio. RAPHAEL IN ROME 63 come is beyond all praise. The loggia is transformed into an arbour of green leaves and flowers, hung, as it were, with rich tapestries, spread out against the blue sky. But exposure to sun and wind during a hundred years destroyed the colour of the frescoes, and in the last century they underwent a thorough restoration, at the hands of Carlo Maratta. Now, Raphael’s design and his pupils’ brushwork are hidden under a thick coat of gaudy reds and coarse blues, and we can only form a faint idea of the joyous brightness, the airy and poetic charm which thrilled the hearts of the spec- tators, on the day when Chigi opened his villa doors, and all Rome flocked to the Lungara. But even then the detractor’s voice was raised, and Lionardo the saddler told Michelangelo that the ceiling of Chigi’s loggia was a disgrace to the master, and was even worse than the last Stanza of the palace. And Vasari remarks that the figures in these frescoes lacked the charm and grace peculiar to Raphael, since they had not been painted by him, but executed by his scholars from his designs. Several fine studies of the Farnesina groups are to be seen in the Louvre and Albertina, at Windsor, Oxford, and Chatsworth. Most of these are the work of Giulio Romano, but one precious pen-and-ink sketch of the famous Mercury bv Raphael’s own hand, is in the Museum of Cologne. The decoration of the Vatican Loggia was begun late in 1517, and not completed until the summer of 1519. These galleries, originally intended by Julius II. to connect the Belvedere Casino with the Vatican Palace, were begun by Bramante, and continued after his death by Raphael, who added a third story to the double tier of arches already erected by his predecessor. At the same time, he planned an entirely new and original scheme for the decoration of the second story, which, leading from the Stanze and looking out on the city and Campagna, was set apart for the Pope’s use. The pilasters and walls of these thirteen arcades were covered with stucco ornaments, in imitation of the antique grotteschi in the Baths of Titus. Flowers and fruit, birds and animals, medallion busts and groups of classical subjects, in exquisite and endless variety, were interwoven in these delicate arabesques designed by Raphael and executed with rare elegance by Giovanni da Udine. On the vaulting of the arcades, set in this lovely framework, is the series of small paintings known as “ Raphael’s Bible.” Forty-two of these subjects are taken from the Old Testament, four only, the Adoration of the Shepherds and Magi , and the Sacraments of Baptism, 64 RAPHAEL IN ROME and the Lord' s Supper , belong to the Gospel story. In after years, these little frescoes were universally ascribed to Raphael, but as a matter of fact, both Vasari and the Venetian scholar, Marc Antonio Michieli, expressly say that they were painted by his assistants from his designs. The whole series has been ruined by restoration, but many of the compositions, especially the early subjects from the story of the patriarchs, are full of charm. As usual, Raphael has adapted his style to the limited space at his disposal, and the simple action and delicate poetry of his conceptions has been admirably rendered by Perino di Vaga, the one of all his scholars who inherited most of his master’s grace and feeling. The stucco mouldings are rapidly crumbling to pieces, and the colour is scaling off the walls, but the whole effect is still incomparably rich and brilliant. Architecture and painting, stucco ornament and mosaic pave- ment were all inspired by the same invention, and the result is that we have here the finest and most complete decorative work of the Renaissance. This association of all the arts and crafts, under one master-mind, was the most remarkable achievement of Raphael’s last years. A whole school of architects and painters, of sculptors, engravers, mosaic workers, wood- carvers and gilders had sprung up under the influence of his genius, and were employed in building and decorating churches, palaces, and villas, under his direction. And perfect harmony, Vasari tells us, reigned in that vast workshop. The gentle spirit of the master seemed to penetrate the whole body of artists, who one and all adored him as a teacher and loved him as a father. Never before had Rome, the capital of Christen- dom, witnessed so splendid a burst of artistic activity. And no painter before, had ever attained so high a degree of honour and renown. The death of Bramante, the absence of Michelangelo, had left him without a rival, both in the Pope’s favour and in the popular estimation. He lived, we are told by Vasari, not as a painter but as a prince, and fifty scholars accompanied him daily from his house to the Vatican. “ You walk as a general at the head of an army,” was the significant remark with which Michelangelo one day greeted him. “ And you, replied Raphael gaily, “ as an executioner on his way to the scaffold. The words are a curious illustration of the contrast that marked the character and habits, as well as the genius, of the two men. Jupiter and Eros, by From the engraving Raphael. Fames in a. by Marc Antonio. E 66 RAPHAEL IN ROME The long-disputed question as to the site of Raphael’s own house has been finally set at rest by Professor Rossi’s discoveries. We know now that on the 7th of October, 1517, he bought a palace which Bramante had lately built in the Borgo Nuovo, on the little Piazza of S. Giacomo Scossacavallo for the Caprini of Viterbo. Two drawings, the one published by Lafreri in 1549, the other taken by the grandson of Domenico Alfani, who visited Rome in 1581, and found by Professor Rossi in the library at Perugia, show us the facade of Raphael’s house, adorned with Doric and rustic columns, as described by Vasari. The arms of the painter were carved in stone over the windows, and were still to be seen at the close of the sixteenth century. Six weeks after Raphael’s death, the palace was sold by his executors to Cardinal Accolti, who lived next door, and the two houses were thrown into one. In 1685, the building became the property of the Confraternity of Penitenzieri, who turned it into a hospital. Since then, this once splendid palace has undergone a complete transformation, and little now remains of its former magnificence. But the columns of an arcade, paved with majolica tiles like the Vatican Loggia , may still be seen, overlooking the piazza, and on the first floor, there is a vast hall with massive walnut doors and a richly decorated ceiling, the very hall, it may be, where the dead painter lay in state on that sad Easter Eve. In this graceful Renaissance palace, Raphael spent the last years of his life. The Vatican and St. Peter’s were close at hand, at the end of the new street, adorned with so many great houses, built by Bramante and himself, and inhabited by his friends. There he lived, with his favourite pupils as companions, and the first scholars of the day among his most frequent visitors. Here letters and messages from the chief courts of Europe, reached him at all hours of the day, and ambassadors and prelates waited patiently at the doors, in the hope of being admitted for a few moments into the great master’s presence. A position of such exceptional distinc- tion naturally provoked envy in the hearts of less fortunate artists, and the followers of Michelangelo made no secret of the hatred with which they regarded Raphael and his scholars. Chief among these disappointed rivals was Sebastian del Piombo, whose letters to Michelangelo are prompted by the most vindictive feelings. No insinuation is too base, no calumny too vile for him to repeat. On one occasion he accuses Raphael of robbing the Pope of three ducats a day, in wages and gilding, and RAPHAEL IN ROME 6 7 boasts that he will bring proofs of the charge before Cardinal Medici. At the same time, his keen eye was quick to detect the inferiority of much of J Venus and Cupid, by Raphael. From the engraving by Mare Antonio. the work that went by Raphael’s name, and his sarcastic remarks on the last Stanze and the Farnesina frescoes, or the pictures painted for Francis I. were not without foundation. In 1517, to his great satisfaction E 2 68 RAPHAEL IN ROME he received an order from Cardinal Medici, who asked both him and Raphael to paint altar-pieces for the church of Narbonne. The Raising of Lazarus was the theme assigned to Sebastian, while Raphael agreed to paint the Resurrection , a subject which he afterwards changed for the Transfiguration. Sebastian set to work at once, with the help of Michel- angelo, who spent a few weeks in Rome, early in 1518, and had almost finished the picture by the following July, but declared that he would not let it be seen, for fear that Raphael should borrow his ideas. Raphael, however, was far too much engaged to think of the Cardinal’s altar-piece. Early in 1518, he painted the portrait of the Pope’s nephew Lorenzo, who had recently been made Duke of Urbino, in the place of the rightful prince, Francesco della Rovere. This work, which is described by Lorenzo himself as a masterpiece, has been lost, but another portrait, which he painted in the same year, remains to show us that his powers of hand and brain were still undiminished. This is the magnificent group of Leo X. and the two Cardinals, in the Pitti. The Pope is seated at a table, holding a magnifying glass in one hand and turning over the pages of an illuminated breviary. The Cardinals stand up behind his chair, De’ Rossi on the right and Giulio de’ Medici on the left. The com- position is curiously like Sebastian del Piombo’s portrait of Carondelet and his Secretaries , in the Duke of Grafton’s collection, and shows that the jealous suspicion with which the Venetian painter regarded his rival was not altogether groundless. But the execution of Raphael’s picture surpassed all that others could do. This portrait of Pope Leo, with his heavy jaw, short neck, and fat white hands, is as wonderful a revelation of character as that of Julius II. himself. We see him there, exactly as he is described in contemporary records, the cultured, pleasure-loving man, kindly and good-natured as a rule, but hard and crafty in his dealings with others, and vindictive and unscrupulous when his own interests were at stake. Vasari, who was familiar with this portrait in the Medici palace, declares that the figures are not painted but as it were cut in relief, and dwells with enthusiasm on the marvellous way in which the furs and velvets, the chased silver bell, and the reflection of the Pope’s robe, of the room and windows in the gold ball of the armchair, are all reproduced. Even here, Giulio Romano painted some of the draperies as we learn from his own statement, but that Raphael executed all the RAPHAEL IN ROME 69 more important parts of the picture, is evident when we compare the portrait with others ascribed to him, in which he had no share. In May, 1518, Lorenzo de’ Medici went to France to marry Made- leine de la Tour d’ Auvergne, and the Pope employed Raphael to paint two pictures as a present to Francis I. On the 27th, the Duke of Ferrara’s envoy reported that Raphael had finished a St. Michael for the King of France and a Virgin and Child, with four other beautiful figures, "Joseph telling his Dreams, by Penno del Vaga, after Raphael. Loggie, Vatican From a photograph by D. Anderson, by permission. for the Queen, and the pictures were immediately sent to Fontainebleau. “I am heartily sorry," wrote Sebastian del Piombo to Michelangelo, “ you were not in Rome to see the two pictures, which have been sent to France, by the Prince of the Synagogue ! You could not imagine any- thing more contrary to your ideas of art. The figures look as if they had been blackened with smoke, or cut out in hard steel, and are drawn after a fashion of which Lionardo must tell you more ! " His judgment 7 ° RAPHAEL IN ROME was in the main correct. Both pictures are fine in design. The great Archangel of the Louvre, flashing down from heaven and planting his foot on the vanquished dragon, is a grand conception, very interesting to compare with the little St. Michael of early Urbino days. And the Virgin, with the Child springing up to meet her, and the kneeling angel scattering flowers on his head, is a lovely dream, such as few but Raphael could have imagined. But the pictures have been ruined in the process of painting, and the hard metallic hues, the black shadows and copper- coloured flesh tints all betray the hand of Giulio Romano. That Raphael should have allowed such work to be sent to Fontainebleau as his production, may appear strange. But he could not help himself. He was overburdened with tasks, and pressed on all sides by impatient masters, whose demands he could not satisfy. On one hand there was the Pope urging him to design frescoes for the next Stanza, wall-paintings for his hunting-box at La Magliana, and a new series of tapestries for the Sistina. One day, he is called from his work to design a medal in honour of Lorenzo’s wedding ; another he must paint the elephant, presented to the Pope by the King of Portugal. The elephant’s portrait was actually painted, probably by Giulio Romano, although the inscription placed on the Vatican walls, stated that it was the work of Raphael. And all the while the decoration of the Vatican Loggia and the works of St. Peter’s, were being carried on under his superintendence. On the other hand, there were the cardinals all clamouring for pictures, Giulio de’ Medici asking, not only for his altar- piece but for plans for the sumptuous villa that he was building on the slopes of Monte Mario, and Leo’s nephew, Cardinal Cibo, seeking his help in the theatrical performances with which he amused the Pope on Sunday evenings. The Duke of Ferrara’s envoy, Paulucci, has left us a lively description of the night when Ariosto’s Suppositi was performed, and he saw the Holy Father put up his glasses to examine the beautiful scenery painted by Raphael. In the midst of this bewildering diversity of engagements, Raphael set to work on an undertaking which would, in the eyes of most men, have been enough to fill a whole lifetime. This was nothing less than a systematic survey of ancient Rome, illustrated with drawings of all the principal monuments. With the help of the learned humanist, Andreas Fulvius, he explored the first oi the fourteen Leo X. and Cardinals , by Raphael. Pitti Gallery , Florence. From a photograph by Braun , Clement 1$ Cie, by permission. 72 RAPHAEL IN ROME regions into which the city was to be divided, taking exact measurements ot all the buildings with the newly-discovered compass, and making drawings of temples and baths that were no longer in existence, from the descriptions of classical writers. Both plan and sketches have perished, but the report which Raphael drew up in the shape of a dedicatory letter to the Pope, written in elegant Latin, is attached to the copy of Calvi’s translation of Vitruvius, in the Munich library. In this interesting epistle, which Raphael probably prepared with the help of Castiglione, he laments the destruction of ancient monuments, which he had witnessed during the last few years, and after saying that the whole of new Rome is cemented with the lime of old marbles, implores the Pope to protect the remains of the once imperial city. He proceeds to express his dislike of Gothic architecture, and his ardent admiration for Bramante and the classical style which it is his ambition to imitate. This last scheme excited the keenest interest of the humanists in Rome, and is described in glowing language by more than one of Raphael’s contempo- raries. The papal secretary, Calcagnini, who, after being long absent in Hungary, returned to Rome in 1519, told his German triend, Jacob Ziegler, of the great work which this wonderful youth, the first ot living painters and most excellent of architects, was preparing, in the following words : “ I do not now speak of the Vatican basilica, of which he is chief architect, but of a plan of the city itself, which he is reproducing in its ancient aspect and proportions. By excavating the loundations of old monuments from the heaps of rubbish which concealed them, and restoring them with the help of ancient descriptions, he has filled Pope Leo and all Rome with such admiration, that they look upon him as a god sent down from heaven to restore the Eternal City in her former majesty. And yet, so far from being puffed up with pride, he meets every one on friendly and familiar terms and rejects no advice or criticism. On the contrary, he is never better pleased than when his opinion is doubted or disputed, and is always eager to learn, counting this to be the greatest joy in life.” The writer goes on to tell his friend how this marvellous young man, ■vir prcedives et pontifici gratis simus, has received under his own roof the old humanist, Fabio Calvi, whom he found, at eighty years of age, living on cabbage and lettuce, in a hole no better than the tub of Diogenes, and RAPHAEL IN ROME 73 actually tends and cherishes him, as if he were his own father. The picture which Calcagnini draws of the great painter, at the height of his glory, courted and caressed as he was by cardinals and princes, devoting himself to the crabbed old humanist, and listening patiently to his fancies, for the sake of learning what he had to teach, is one of rare interest. It shows us how Raphael preserved the modesty and charm oi his nature through all, and remained to the end, as eager and anxious to learn, as he had been in the days of his youth. In these last years of his life, archaeological studies, it is plain, became his most absorbing pursuit. He sent his scholars to Greece and Naples, to Athens and Pozzuoli, to take drawings of all the classical remains which they could discover, and succeeded in firing them with his own enthusiasm for antiquity. And he collected gems and medals and vases with the indefatigable ardour common to all cultured men and women in those days. Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered if he found himself unable to keep his promises and execute all the com- missions which he received. The poor nuns of Monteluce never got their altar-piece, and Isabella d’Este waited four years in vain for a little picture which Raphael had promised to paint for her Grotta. Castiglione indeed was obliged to confess that Raphael only worked at it in his presence, and put it away directly his back was turned ! Yet when the Marchesana asked Count Baldassare to procure a design for her husband’s tomb, there was no one to whom he could go but Raphael, and a sketch from his pen was actually sent to Mantua a few months before he died. But the most persistent of all the noble patrons who besieged Raphael with orders, was Isabella’s brother Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. The way in which he harried the painter, and, regardless of delays and excuses, persevered to the end in his suit, helps us to realise the sort of persecution which Raphael had to endure at this time of his life. In March 1517, he promised to paint a Triumph of Bacchus for the duke’s camerino as soon as the frescoes of the Stanza di Eliodoro were finished, but in November, hearing that Pellegrino di Udine was engaged on a similar subject, he asked leave to choose another theme, and sent a sketch of the proposed picture to Ferrara. At the same time, he made the duke a present of the cartoon of the fresco of Leo III. and Charlemagne, in the last Stanza. In December, Bishop Costabili, Alfonso’s envoy in Rome, paid the master 74 RAPHAEL IN ROME 50 ducats in advance, but Raphael was too busy, working at the paintings for the French king, to begin the duke’s picture that winter. All that year the same delays and excuses were repeated, together with the same protestations of anxiety to serve the duke. First the picture was pro- mised for Easter, then for Christmas. Meanwhile, in the hope of allaying the duke’s impatience, Raphael sent him the cartoon of his Archangel Michael , by one of his assistants, who was on his way to buy colours at Venice, and Alfonso, in return, presented him with 25 ducats, “to make good cheer on the feast of St. Martin.” The duke spent that Christmas at the French court, and begged Raphael to let him have the cartoon of the portrait of Joanna of Aragon, the fair wife of Ascanio Colonna, Viceroy of Naples, which had been lately presented to Francis I. by the papal legate, Cardinal Bibbiena. Raphael complied with his request, but told him frankly that this cartoon was the work of an assistant, whom he had sent to Naples, at the cardinal’s request, to take Joanna’s portrait. By this time, the painter’s whole thoughts were absorbed in his survey of ancient Rome, and in February 1519, he told Costabili that he was glad he had not begun the duke’s picture, for that, in the last three months, he had learnt more of perspective than he had ever known before. But the old Bishop’s health was failing, and the duke sent a younger secretary to take his place, telling him to demand the delivery of Raphael’s picture without delay. Paulucci, as the new envoy was named, met the painter at court and at evening parties in the rooms of the cardinals. Each time Raphael greeted him with the same fair speeches, and invited him to come and see the picture which he was painting for the duke, at his own house. But each time Paulucci pre- sented himself at the master’s house, he was put off with some excuse, and was forced to own that Raphael’s polite phrases were but idle words. “And yet,” he adds disconsolately, “he seems a very courteous gentleman.” One evening in September, he found the door of the painter’s house open, and getting off his horse, he walked boldly in, and asked for the master, but was stopped by a servant, who came to say that Messer Raphael was up stairs, engaged in painting the portrait of Messer Baldassarre Castiglione, and could not be disturbed. The duke’s picture, he heard, had been sketched out, but was turned with its face to the wall, under a pile of other canvases in the same state. Battista Dossi, however, assured him that RAPHAEL IN ROME IS Raphael would have finished Cardinal Medici’s altar-piece by next Carnival, and would then satisfy his Excellency without fail. Still Paulucci per- severed in his troublesome task and lay in wait for the painter, day after day, as he went to and fro, between his house and the Vatican. At length, on the 17th of December, he caught him on the scaffolding of St. Peter’s, superintending the work of strengthening some piers that showed signs of giving way. The painter addressed him with his habitual courtesy, saying that he must finish the business he had on hand with the builders, but that he hoped Paulucci would come and see him another day. By this time, however, Alfonso’s patience was fairly at an end. He wrote angrily to his secretary, and sent Raphael word that his promises were all lies, but that he would soon let him see that the Duke of Ferrara was no vulgar plebeian, to be treated in this fashion. Still Paulucci tried to gain his end by fair means, and told his master that Raphael, like all men of his genius, suffered from melancholy, especially since he had embraced the profession of architect, and was in Bramante’s place. At length his patience was rewarded, and on the 20th of March, he gained admission into Raphael’s house, where he saw many beautiful things and conversed for some time with the master. Raphael promised to make his excuses to the duke, through his friend Dosso Dossi, and talked in a friendly manner of the way in which he had cured his chimneys of smoking, offering to send the duke drawings of the plan which he had adopted in his own house. Paulucci went away charmed, and full of hope for the future. But when he wrote again, on the 7th of April, Raphael was in his grave, and the envoy’s brief letter gave the Duke of Ferrara the sad news of his death and burial. The last picture to which he devoted his powers was the Trans- figuration. In September, 1519, he had at length set to work upon the Cardinal’s altar-piece, intending, as Vasari tells us, to paint the whole picture with his own hand. Sebastian del Piombo’s Raising of Lazarus had been exhibited at Christmas, in the Cardinal’s house, and the Venetian boasted that it was far superior to the arras which had lately come from Flanders. The eyes of all Rome were upon the two painters, and Raphael was determined that this time his picture should be worthy of his name. His idea was a great one. The actual Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor and the vain efforts of His disciples to heal the 76 RAPHAEL JN ROME demoniac were combined in one picture. A noble drawing of the upper group, the majestic Christ soaring heavenwards, and the three Apostles hiding their faces from the blinding light, may be seen at Chatsworth. The figures are undraped, and unlike the more finished studies in other collections, are drawn by Raphael’s own hand. But this portion of the work was all that he had time to do. Before he could sketch in the rest the brush dropped from his hand, and his orphaned scholars were left to finish the picture. On the 20th of March he received the Duke of Ferrara’s envoy. On the 24th, he signed a contract with the Canons of St. Peter, for the purchase of a plot of land for building purposes. Three days after that, he fell ill of a fever, brought on, it has been sometimes said, by his archaeological excursions in the malarial quarters of the city, or else, as others tell us, the result of a chill caught by waiting in a hall of the Vatican, after hurrying from Chigi’s villa, in obedience to a summons from the Pope. Whatever the cause of the illness may have been, he had no strength to resist the attack. That unwonted melancholy which Paulucci had noticed some months before, was a sign that his health was giving way under the prolonged strain to which it had been exposed. He sank rapidly, worn out in body and mind. But he retained sufficient consciousness to make his will, and appointed two of the chief officials of the Pope’s household, Brancan- tonio dell’ Aquila and Baldassarre Turini, to be his executors. He gave directions for his burial in the Pantheon, left a thousand ducats to endow a sepulchral chapel, and a sum oi three hundred ducats to each of his servants. The bulk of his property, valued at sixteen thousand ducats, was left to his relatives at Urbino, and all his unfinished works of art to his pupils, Giulio Romano and Francesco Penni. At nine o’clock, on the evening of Good Friday, the 6th of April, he breathed his last, having exactly completed his thirty-eighth year. His scholars, feeling in their bitter grief, like children suddenly bereft of a father, placed the unfinished Transfiguration at the head of the bed, where their master lay in his last sleep. There the crowds, who came to look once more on the face of Raphael, saw him with his great picture at his side, and broke into tears and sobs, at the mournful contrast between the dead man and the living forms that his hand had fashioned. The next day, all the artists in Rome, followed by a great concourse of people, bore RAPHAEL IN ROME 77 him to the grave which he had chosen for himself, before the altar of Our Lady, under the dome of the Pantheon. Court and city alike were plunged into mourning, and there was a general feeling of consternation and dismay. The Pope himself wept bitterly. The walls of the Vatican Loggie cracked and seemed about to crumble to pieces. “ Lapides scissi sunt l The heavens have spoken, as at the death of Christ,” wrote the Mantuan envoy to his mistress, in a pathetic letter, in which he described the gloom of that fatal Good Friday, and told Isabella that no one in Rome could talk or think of anything but the death of Raphael. And Marc’ Antonio Michieli wrote in the same strain to his friends at Venice : “ On the night of Good Friday, that most gentle and excellent of painters, Raphael of Urbino, died, to the infinite grief of all men, but especially of the learned, for whom, even more than for painters and architects, he was preparing a plan of the antique monuments of Rome, with their forms and ornaments so correctly drawn, that to see this would have been to see the ancient city. Now this glorious work is interrupted by the envious hand of Death, who has robbed us of this youthful master, at the age of thirty-four, and on his own birthday. The Pope himself is plunged in grief, and during the fortnight that the painter’s illness lasted, sent to him six times with messages of inquiry and condolence. Judge by that, what others have done ! And since the palace of the Pope has threatened to fall into ruins, and His Holiness has had to take refuge in Monsignore Cibo’s rooms, there are some who believe this accident to have been caused, not merely by the weight of the upper porticoes, but by the death of the artist who decorated its walls. And, indeed, a most rare and excellent master has passed away, and every gentle soul must grieve to think that he is gone. His body has been honourably interred in the Rotonda, and his spirit is doubtless gone to contemplate those celestial mansions where there can be no decay. The world, to my mind, has suffered a far less heavy loss in the death of Messer Agostino Chigi, who died last night, leaving in securities, ready money, banking accounts, houses, and jewels, upwards of eight million ducats. Michelangelo is said to be ill in Florence. Tell our Catena to take care, for this is a fatal time for great painters.” Even the voice of envy was hushed in the general sense of loss, and Sebastian del Piombo wrote to Michelangelo : “ You will have heard of the death of that poor Raphael of Urbino, and the news, I know. RAPHAEL IN ROME 78 will have grieved you sorely. May God grant him pardon ! ” Poets and scholars alike — the humanists who lamented his premature end, and the friends who had loved him, Ariosto and Bembo, Calcagnini and Tebaldeo, recorded their grief in elegant verses, in sonnets and epitaphs. But, more touching in its simplicity than any of these elaborate elegies, was the exclamation that broke from the lips of Castiglione, when he came back to Rome and found himself without his friend. “ I am in good health,” he wrote to his mother, “but cannot believe that I am in Rome, now that my poor Raphael is no longer here. God keep that blessed soul ! ” The death of Raphael marks the close of a great era. One by one the leaders of that brilliant age were passing out of sight. The splendid banker, Chigi, died in the same week, Cardinal Bibbiena a few months later, Leo X. himself, in the autumn of the following year. He was succeeded by Adrian VI., an austere pontiff with little love for art, and at the end of a few short years, came the horrors of the sack of Rome. The scholars of Raphael were scattered and his masterpieces exposed to barbarous outrages. German soldiers pillaged the Vatican and stabled their horses in the Stanze that were adorned with Raphael’s frescoes. In those terrible days, the hearts of men naturally turned back to the peace and splendour of Leo the Tenth’s reign, and they thought of that vanished time as a golden age. But the great movement was already on the wane. Nothing better proves the strength and purity of Raphael’s genius, than the marks of decline that became evident in the work of his followers, the moment his controlling influence was withdrawn. Had he lived his full term of years, we are sometimes tempted to think, the decadence might have been arrested for another half a century. But the gods loved him, and he was fortunate in the hour of his death. In his life and in his work, in his ardour for knowledge and his passion for antiquity, in his belief in the power of culture to sweeten and elevate humanity, above all, in his instinctive love of beauty, and in the large serenity of his art, Raphael represents the best and highest aims of the Renaissance. For once the ideal of Plato was realised, and in him the world saw an artist whose own beautiful and gracious nature was in perfect harmony with his dreams, whose creations, “ like a health- giving breeze from a purer region, draw the soul insensibly into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.” INDEX Accolti, Cardinal, 66 Adrian VI., 78 Albertina (Vienna), 9, 21, 30, 49, 63 Alidesi, Cardinal, 50 Altoviti, Bindo, 30 Alva, Duke of, 27 Ambrosiana (Milan), 21 d’ Ancona, Pietro, 44 Aquila, Brancantonio dell’, 45, 60, 76 Ara Coeli, Church of, 29 Ariosto, 10, 70, 78 “ Attila, The Retreat of,” 26, 36 Augustus III., of Saxony, 57 Barberini Palace, 53 Bartolommeo, Fra, 13, 17 Bazzotto, 5, 6 Beazzano, 51 Bembo, 10, 36, 43, 46, 51, 52, 7S Bentivogli, The, 9 Bergamo, 49 Bibbiena, Cardinal, 10, 36, 39, 46, 50 — 52, 74, 78 Bibbiena, Maria, 55 “ Bible, Raphael’s,” 63 Bologna, 6, 9, 24, 56, 60 “ Bolsena, The Miracle of,” 25, 26, 29 Borgherini, Lionardo, 44, 63, 69 Botti, Matteo, 55, 56 Bramante, 9, 17, 18, 38, 41, 42, 45, 63, 64, 66, 72, 75 llramantino, 9 Braschi Palace, 51 British Museum, 55 Brussels, 58 Buffa, Francesco, 41 Calcagnini (Papal Secretary), 72, 73, 7S Calvi, Fabio, 45, 72 Canossa, Count of, 60 Carrara, 36 Carrocci, Baverio, 34, 45 Cartoons for tapestry, 57, 58 Castiglione, Baldassarre, 10, iS, 39, 43 — 45, 51, 52 , 56, 73 , 74 , 78 Charles I., 58 Chatsworth, 63 Chigi, Agostino, 26, 35, 43, 60, 63, 76 — 7S “ Christ bearing his Cross,” 59 Ciarla, Simone, 39, 40 Cibo, Cardinal, 70, 77 Cinelli, 55 Clement VII., 49 Cologne Museum, 63 Colonna, Ascanio, 74 Colonna, Cardinal, 60 Conti, Sigismondo, 29, 30 Correr Museum (Venice), 22 Corsini Talace (Florence), 30 Costabili, Bishop, 73, 74 “Dispute of the Sacrament, The,” 14, 17 “ Donna Velata, La,” 55, 56 Doria Palace (Rome), 51, 56 “ Dorotea,” 55 Dossi, Battista, 74 Dossi, Dosso, 75 Duglioli, Elena, 56 Dtirer, Albert, 49 Erasmus, 5 Farnese, Alexander, 24 Ferrara, Duke of, 69, 70, 73 — 76 Florence, 30, 45, 55 Foligno, 29 Fontainebleau, 69, 7 ° “ Fornarina, La,” 55 Francia, 5, 6, 9, 30 Francis I., 46, 67, 68 Frescoes by Raphael in the Farnesina, 60, 63, 67 ; in the Vatican, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17, 36, 46 Fulvius, Andreas, 70 “ Galatea,” 42, 43 Gioconde da Verona, Fra, 38, 41 Giovanni da Verona, Fra, 24 Gonzaga Collection, 52, 60 Gonzaga, Eleanora, iS Gonzaga, Federigo, 18, 30, 34 Gorlitz, Cardinal, 44 Greolani, Count, 60 Grimani, Cardinal, 5 Guidobaldo, see Urbino, Duke of, 6 “ Heliodorus, The Expulsion of,” 25 “ l’Improvisatrice,” 55 “l’lncendio del Borgo,” 46, 49 Inghirami, Tommaso, 51 Isabella d’Este, 18, 22, 34, 73, 77 8o INDEX “ Joanna of Aragon, Portrait of,” 74 Julius II., 9, 18, 24 — 27, 30, 34, 42, 50, 63 “Julius II., Portrait of,” 30 “Jurisprudence,” 24 Lambertini family, 6 Leo X., 35, 36, 38, 42, 43, 45, 46, 50, 57, 68—70, 72 , 77 , 7 S “Leo X., Portrait of,” 68 Lille Museum, 9, 28, 44 Lorenzetto, 44 Louvre, The, 9, 55, 63 “Madonna, Aldobrandini ” or “ Garvagh,” 27 ; “ di Casa d’Alba,” 27 ; “ di Foligno,” 29, 57 ; “ di Loretto,” 27 ; “ del Pesce,” 59 ; “ di San Sisto,” 56, 57 ; “della Sedia,” 28 Madrid, 27, 50 Malcolm Collection, 33 Malvasia, 6 Mantua, 52, 73 Maratta, Carlo, 63 “Massacre of the Innocents, The,” 30 Medici, Giovanni cle’, 24, 28 ,, Giuliano de’, 35, 36, 51, 52 ,, Giulio de’, 24, 46, 67, 68, 70, 75 ,, Lorenzo de’, 68 — 70 Michelangelo, 9, 26, 34, 36, 44, 45, 63, 64, 66, 79 , 77 Michieli, Marc Antonio, 64, 77 Milan, 9 Monti, Antonio de’, 57 Morelli Collection, 49 Munich, 30, 72 Muntz, Eugene, 50 Naples, 59, 74 Narbonne, 68 Navagero, 51 Nicholas V., 9 Nocera, 27 Oxford, 9, 44, 63' Palermo, 60 Pandolfini Palace (Florence), 45 “Parnassus, The,” 21 — 23 Passavant, 44 Paulucci, 70, 74 — 76 Penni, Francesco, 38, 60, 76 “ Perla, La,” 60 Perugia, 66 Perugino, 9, 13 Peruzzi, 9, 25 Philip IV. of Spain, 60 Tiacenza, 57 Piornbo, Sebastiano del, 27, 43, 44, 55, 66, 68, 69 75 , 77 Pitti Palace, 30, 50, 55, 60, 68 Poggio Reale, 56 Poliziano, 43 Pucci, Cardinal de’, 56 Raphael, see Sanzio Raimondi, Marc Antonio, 25, 30, 33, 34 Ravenna, 36, 45 Reveley Collection, 49 Riario, Cardinal, 5, 25, 27, 59 Richardson, Jonathan, 10, 41 Ridolfo, 41 Romano, Giulio, 27, 38, 43, 44, 46, 49, 58, 60, 63, 68, 70, 76 “Romano, Portrait of Lucretia,” 30 Rome, 5, 6, 27, 34, 39, 41, 64, 66, 70, 72, 74 Rovere, Della (family), 10, 27 Rossi, Cardinal de’, 68 Rossi, Professor, 66 Rubens, 58 “Saint Catherine,” 13, 28 “Saint Cecilia,” 56 “ Saint John,” 60 “ Saint Michael,” 69, 70 “Saint Peter, Deliverance of,” 36 San Gallo, Giuliano di, 38 Santi, Giovanni, 29 Sanzio, Raffaello, summoned to Rome by Julius II., 5 ; he paints the frescoes of the “Stanze,’ 27 ; works for Leo X., 36 ; appointed architect of St. Peter’s, 38 ; appointed Inspector of An- tiquities in Rome, 45 ; paints the frescoes of Chigi’s villa, 60, 63 ; his death at Rome, 77 “ School of Athens, The,” 17, 19 Sicily, 59 Siena, 30 Sistine Chapel, 26, 43, 70 Sodoma, 9, 18, 21, 36 South Kensington Museum, 58 Spain, 51, 52, 60 Tebaldeo, 51, 52, 78 Tour d’ Auvergne, Madeleine de la, 69 “Transfiguration, The,” 68, 75, 76 Turini, Baldassare, 76 Udine, Giovanni da, 45, 58, 63 Uffizi, The, 30, 49, 60 Urbino, 5, 6, 9, 10, 18, 39, 41, 51, 68, 76 ,, Duchess of, 18, 41 ,, Duke (Francesco) of, 18, 41 ,, Duke (Guidobaldo) of, 6 Vaga, Perino del, 58, 64 Vasari, 6, 29, 30, 34, 37, 43, 45, 46, 55, 58, 63, 64, 68, 75 Vatican, The, 9, 29, 46, 51, 60, 63, 64, 70, 76, 77, 7S Venice, 30. 42, 51, 77 “ Venus, The Toilet of,” 33 “ Vierge au Diademe, La,” 27 “Vision of Ezekiel, The,” 60 “Visitation, The,” 60 Viti, Timoteo, 5, 22 Volterra, 51 Volterra, Daniele da, 44 Whitehall, 60 Windsor, 9, 10, 63 Ziegler, Jacob, 72