ifliHIlilillili; LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 759.5 R12gEa The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN APR 09 JUN 2 S 1 JAN 05 MAR 1 8 t FEB28I iteo L161 O-1096 GRIMM'S LIFE OF RAPHAEL THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL, at HERMAN GRIMM TRANSLATED WITH THE AUTHOR'S SANCTION BY SARAH HOLLAND ADAMS TRANSLATOR OF GRIMM'S ' GOETHE ' AND ' LITERATURE,* MEYER'S 'THE MONK'S WEDDING,' ETC. BOSTON DE WOLFE, FISKE & CO. 361 AND 365 WASHINGTON STKKET Copyright, 1888, BY CUPPLES AND HUKD. All Rights Reserved. CONTENTS LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE TRANSLATOR. CHAPTEK PAGE I. THE SPOSALIZIO 1 II. THE EXTOMBMEXT 49 III. THE CAMERA DELLA SEGXATURA ... 87 IV. THE CARTOONS FOR THE TAPESTRIES . . 125 V. THE SISTIXE MADOXNA AXD TIIK TRAXS- FIGURATIOX 163 VI. FOUR CENTURIES OF RAPHAEL'S FAME . 247 85939 3t better FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE TRANSLATOR. DEAR FRIEND, I regard it as my special good fortune that your pen enables me once more to enter into communication with your countrymen. It is as if I were an American speaking to Americans. Your translations are so spirited that I sometimes feel as if an author were at work in your Fatherland whose views are precisely the same as mine, and with whom I am strangely in unison. From my youth I have felt an interest and sympathy in America, although I have never been there. I can recall from the days of my far-off boyhood, the undefined, romantic feel- ing with which men strained their gaze across the ocean's wide expanse from the fettered, pre-Bismarck Germany, to the opposite shores " where Freedom dwelt." These sentiments, however, are by no means the ground of my present attachment to your country. It dates from the day when the writings of Emerson 11 A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR. first fell into my hands. No one has been to me such a revelation. I repeat what I have put into words more than once elsewhere : there is no author to whom, as pupil, I am so largely indebted for pu- pils are we all, and we can only say again what others have said before us. On becoming acquainted with Emerson's writings the thought first dawned upon me of the grand part which young America, hand in hand with Germany, had to play in the Future. It was my presentiment at the moment of his death that the times were ripe for the career of his influ- ence upon the world to begin. This influence is not manifest in disciples and followers who would usurp his name for a new system of philosophy, to be educed from the letter of his works, but by uni- versal recognition of his unswerving love of truth, as the supreme element, not only in literature but in life. I see Carlyle in his clouded life "fighting the spectres of the mind " (as he himself says), ever in conflict with those forces, which, meeting us in every direction still hinder the attainment of spiritual freedom. In Emerson, on the other hand, we see a man who from the beginning conquered those forces and set them aside as if they did not exist. He proclaims to us his doctrine of the harmony among A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR. in all created things (whether of the world or of the fan- tasy) with such serene naive assurance that we must all be inspired with the same happy confidence. Rarely has any one ever encountered such harsh opposition. Emerson was branded as an enemy to Christianity, as a reckless charlatan seeking only to gratify personal vanity with his dazzling antith- eses. Yet never was he tempted to contend with his enemies, and their number grew less and less, until at present even those who are at variance with many of his views, acknowledge and appreciate the salutary influence of his life and works. When I try to imagine how Emerson would per- haps have regarded Raphael, with some of whose works he was indeed acquainted, but of whose life- work he knew little, I feel as if he would have arrived at results differing not widely from my own. A striking analogy exists in the nature of these two men. My endeavor in writing the Life of Raphael has not been to supply with fancies and conjectures the lack of information concerning his actual career, nor merely to satisfy the curiosity of those who in the knowledge of these outward experiences imagine they possess the life of a man. The significance of my task seemed to me rather to lie in finding answers to the following questions :tln what relations IV A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR. did this artist, inspired with his sunny views of life, stand to the common world around him ? yHow were the radiant pictures received which he gave to the world ? Was he assisted in his work or was he hindered ? How powerful was this help or this hin- drance, and by whom exercised ? These questions led me to consider the man as well as the ideas pub- licly agitated and discussed in Raphael's day, to whose influence he must have been subjected. Above all, I have tried to fathom the conceptions Raphael wished to embody in his paintings, and to point out how far he succeeded ; or, if his success was doubtful, where the fault lay. The ample num- ber of drawings preserved, puts us in position to follow the process of development through which his principal works passed ; and it is indeed clear that in the final execution of them they did not always correspond to what he appears to have intended in his first designs. Following up these traces I have come to the conclusion that Raphael's genius, under circumstances still more favorable, would have had even a nobler development. I believe, too, that I am able with some degree of certainty to point out what position he took toward the church-reform movement then in progress, not only in Germany but in all the nations of Europe. A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR. V As a result, in part growing out of this idea, I have been led to give to Raphael's principal works, The Disputa and the School of Athens, an inter- pretation differing from the usual one. It is now nearly thirty years since I first devoted myself to Raphael, and these two frescoes in the papal apart- ment have, from the beginning, been the object of my study. I have advanced to my present opinion slowly and step by step. In a separate work, with which I am now occupied, I propose to give a minute and detailed account of these studies. For the present translation I have re-written this chapter so that it does not correspond to that of the Camera della Segnatura in the German edition, but gives the contents in a more concise, definite, and vigorous form. In this final revision, now published for the first time in your translation, I have expressed my views quite positively, and hope that those interested in the study of Raphael may find I have thereby rendered them a service. I refer all, who would make him an object of special study, to the German edition (also to be had in America), and to an essay of some length included in my Fifteen Essays (Dritte Folge, 1882, 5 61-ff). It is furthermore necessary, if one is to understand the different views entertained VI A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR. about the pictures, to have good photographs from the original paintings and from the sketches and drawings by Raphael's hand, everywhere to be pro- cured at small cost and trouble. May this book find the same friendly reception that my earlier writings have done in your country. I express this wish for myself, but at the same time also for you whose faithful and untiring labors de- serve such recognition, even if the book itself should not receive it. Yours with sincere esteem, HERMAN GRIMM. To Miss ADAMS, Berlin, June, 1887. Mote. IN order to bring this American translation within certain limits, a few passages of historical research and sometimes of subtle analysis have been omitted, but the German edition is now accessible to any reader who may wish to consult the original work. THE SPOSALIZIO. CHAPTER I. THE SPOSALIZIO. (THE MABRIAGE OF MART.) RAPHAEL'S apprenticeship falls into that peace- ful century, the "Quattrocento," which, directly preceding the Reformation, is distinguished because, during its course, Italy occupied the first place among the European nations. The Quattrocento has its especial friends ; Jacob Burckhardt's " Cultur der Renaissance" is an Encyclopaedia of its signification and fullness. The wealth of the book has not produced the effect it would otherwise have done, for the reason that, ac- cording to the author's plan, philosophy and religion are omitted, so that as a whole, it resembles a picture with a glowing animated background in which all the figures are wanting to the foreground. In Voigt's beautiful and instructive work " Die Wieder- belebung des Humanismus in Italien," the learned men, whom he so graphically portrays as leaders in mental and spiritual progress, pass before us isolated and stripped of all that Burckhardt gives them with 4 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. such lavish hand. And yet the two authors are not the complement of one another; the satisfactory book is yet to be written it must embrace more and should begin with the plastic artists. In no epoch have these played such a conspicuous part as in the Quattrocento. This century was a time of contemplative enjoy- ment, of comfort and pleasure in mere existence. Of quarrels, contentions, wars, scenes of bitterest cruelty and frightful destruction, certainly it had enough, but that deep inward unrest had not set in among the nations, which, at its climax to-day, drives us to despair. Up to the Quattrocento stretches the antique world, which for three thousand years as far back as sight can go rolled on its destined way at a moderate pace. Already, in- deed, presages of a new state of things began to arise, but they looked forward to harmonious con- ditions, and with as certain expectations as were entertained immediately before the breaking out of the French Revolution, when the blossoming of a humanizing era was prophesied in Europe. Savona- rola's violent efforts to rouse the souls of men, which fell into the end of the century, had no sequence. Repose seemed still the natural basis for human life. To us it appears as if the days and years must then have been longer and the pulse-beats of men slower. They desired to exist simply for them- selves. They read eagerly and corresponded ; books also were printed, but we can count them. They THE SPOSALIZIO. 5 were still expensive. They did not yet play a moving part in the affairs of the world, nor modify the thoughts of men. The spoken word was the mediating power for slowly progressing brain-work, and by small contributions and chance gains mental wealth was laboriously hived up. Men were cautious and silent. They stayed at home. The veils which screen the distance were thicker, the mysteries of foreign lands more grave, the roads, as soon as the towers of one's native city were out of sight, became long and dangerous, and return uncertain. "Perder la cupola di veduta " no longer to be able to see the cupola of the cathedral, was what a genuine Florentine could not bear. They believed in cities during the Quattrocento, and the Italian cities were the most powerful of all. Italian soil seemed specially prepared to bring forth cities. Even before the founding of Rome the greater part of them had stood on the very sites where we find them to-day. And when, after a thousand years service, the chain broke, which, as an illusive whole, had held the provinces of the empire together, Italy once more appeared as at the hour when Rome put forth its first childish efforts. In the Quattrocento we find the institution of cities in its highest perfection ; it is the first truly national bloom after the Augustan Age. The Italian Municipalities had had a history running back full two thousand years when the first Flemish and German cities were founded. These latter had also 6 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. during the Quattrocento wealth and power enough, but the element of an intellectual life they were not capable of producing. Even the Emperors could not make head against Venice, and when, at the end of the century, Charles VIII. victoriously entered Florence with his army, he by no means felt at home in his new position. The inhabitants of cities in the Quattrocento may be compared to bees, who while laboring after the sustenance of life instinctively build artistic and marvellous dwelling-places for themselves. To erect churches and palaces planned for eternity seemed in those days a necessity. A return had set in to the architectural forms of the antique world, which they learned to understand as by inspira- tion, from the few last vestiges remaining to them. The antique sculptures also gave new life to painting and the plastic art. From century to century the importance of the freshly discovered monuments in- creased. The beauty of the statues, which were brought to light, overcame all scruples concerning 1 them, although, according to the teachings of the church, they were to be looked upon as the abodes of evil demons. In the progress of the century the earth richly yielded up statues in bronze and marble, cut stones, medals, weapons, vases and house- hold utensils of all kinds, as if some provi- dent ancestors at the dawn of barbarous days had carefully buried these valuable things to preserve them until a brighter future could derive benefit THE SPOSALIZIO. . 7 from the concealed family treasures. And the an- tique authors, whose Latin as the second mother tongue of the people had remained living through all these centuries, now appeared as the interpreters of these possessions circulated far and wide by the new printing-press. Their truth and value were sacredly believed in. The Italians of the Quattro- cento regarded themselves as the natural heirs to this past glory and looked forward with certainty to a return of the old splendor. Such thoughts in- spired the best and noblest citizens and residents of Rome, Venice and Milan as well as the Floren- tines. The clergy and higher orders of the nobility took the lead in the search for antique treasures. They made no chronologic distinctions ; the entire Old World was like a kingdom endowed with all the choicest gifts of the spirit which, though belonging- to the past, had not perished, but could be conjured, back into life, and by the exertion of their own powers might still forward the march of intellect. They imagined themselves linked to those periods of an- tique existence which produced the best authors and the most beautiful works of art. What charms us in these dreams to-day is the innocence with which men surrendered themselves to them. We do not re- proach the men of the Quattrocento for not having; prepared themselves for what the next century brought forth. What age has ever done that? But one thing they would and could do better than any other, use their eyes, and men must first 8 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. see whatever is to become a part of their lives ; therefore artists took the foremost rank. Painters and sculptors were the mediums for communicating historical knowledge to the people. A chiseled or painted portrait was more eloquent than the best biography. The plastic artists were the teachers of the great public and its historians. Events must pass through their hands before they could assume the rank of actual verities. An infinite array of subjects, selected from the realm of sacred and pro- fane history, indeed, even the Christian doctrines, in symbolic force, were exhibited inside and outside of the houses and churches. They governed and directed the imaginative life of the people. Day after day these works were present to their view in unaltered forms. Men had become accustomed to receiving knowledge of events through visible repre- sentation. This, in truth, was the reason why from the beginning the Latin Church, in contrast to the Greek Church, adhered to pictures ; they were one of its most powerful adjuncts. It had been so from time immemorial but the Quattrocento was fertile to a degree which exceeded all earlier or later times. Never before or after did men possess such happy iacility to express their thoughts in plastic form. How naively Botticelli translates Dante's visions into pictures. Eyes were insatiable in seeing at that time and artists inexhaustible in invention. In all the vicissitudes of life, in war and politics, was mingled a passionate solicitude for works of Art. THE SPOSALIZIO. . 9 We are accustomed in this connection to think only of the Medici of Florence, but they were in many respects phenomenal. We speak here of the average type. Charles Yriarte in a book on Malatesta di Rimini, which appeared in Paris some years since, under the title of " Un Condottiere au XV. sieele," introduces us into the very core of the existence of one of those little princes, whose life, divided be- tween war and the pursuit of Art, barbarity and refinement, was a genuine expression of the spirit of his century. To possess works of plastic Art, or to cause them to be produced, was the noblest excitement of the age. Painters, sculptors, and architects traveled about, enthusiastically welcomed everywhere. They rose to that higher view of life which shows each man's true home to be where the best opportunities are offered for the unfolding of his talents.* They were called from afar (" far " in the sense of that day), retained at any cost, contended for and made the subject of diplomatic intercourse in order to steal them away from one another. Every man of them had some- thing to do somewhere, though the masters worked side by side. The artists formed a mighty family in the land and its members knew each other well, holding together, despite personal feuds ; and the quantity of their productions is immeasurable, while * Ghiberti sayp this in so nittny words. 10 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. the good quality, even of the mediocre work, fills us with astonishment. The characteristic of the Quattrocento is the de- light taken by individuals in the growth and owner- ship of works of Art. The work is conceived by the iirtists with special reference first and foremost to the enjoyment of the one who has ordered it. But all understand how to estimate and value it. Never have artists received such proofs of personal grati- tude from their patrons, both high and low, as in the Quattrocento. In the two preceding centuries the individuality of the patron was not of so much account. Public life was still quite too independent of the criticism of the middle classes ; the life of the aristocracy too exclusively occupied with war and politics. These centuries saw the rise of those huge municipal palaces, mere layers of rock piled one upon another, which meet us here and there, seem- ing to scoff at all attempts to remove them ; at once fortresses and houses, while the plans for the cathe- drals are oftentimes too large to admit of their being finished. In the Quattrocento the artists first adhere to the average human standard for works of Art, even where they are of colossal magnitude. Where sculptors and architects deal with the colossal, the elements by which they seek to gain this expansion are still of a modest kind. Even the most enormous sculptures remind us that the studies of their authors were made in the workshops of goldsmiths. The wall-pictures preserve a sort of affinity with early THE SPOSALIZIO. 11 miniature painting in which modern Art took its rise. The architects take special pride in appro- priating small spaces, insignificant corners within the city walls, for their most precious display of inventive skill. The Cinquecento and the succeed- ing centuries have set aside these works and over- spread Italian soil with huge memorials of their own lofty, enlarged, artistic conceptions, nevertheless the Quattrocento stands as the form-giving epoch. The works which arose in its course seem a more natural, necessary outgrowth of the national soil than the later stupendous and far more magnificent productions which, if removed from their places to- morrow, would scarcely leave a void behind, palaces from whose windows a feeling of desolation gapes at us, as if they never could have been inhabitable. If, on the other hand, we enter the middle and smaller towns of Italy, Siena, Perugia, Orvieto, the still prevailing Quattrocento inspires at once a home- like feeling. And going about in Florence or Rome, our eyes surfeited with the mass of walls and statues from the 17th century, when, perchance, a fragment of the Quattrocento meets the sight, it affects us like a healthy, natural tree growing in flat, artificial gardens, but at its own sweet will, and with birds nestling in its branches. To these smaller towns which bear to-day the stamp of the Quattrocento, belongs Raphael's native city of Urbino. Florence and Rome have long since ceased to be Raphael's Florence and Rome ; but he would still recognize Urbino. 12 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. 2. Italy, with Rome and the States of the Church at her centre, was subject to three kinds of rulership when Raphael was born. First, the two great cities ruling in their own might, Venice and Florence. Then two despotisms of wider scope, one north, the other at the south : Milan, the dukedom governing the rich plains of the Po, and Naples (il regno) to which the southern point of Italy belonged. Between these five powers and dependent upon their policy, was the mass of self -sustained towns and principal- ities of every kind whose proceedings effected numerous changes in the politics of Italy at that time. There were dukes, counts and other nobles whose business it was to make war. A never ending fight, simply for the sake of fighting. To the families who were among the upholders of this state of things belonged the lords of Urbino, the family of Montefeltro. A variety of castles and small cities composed their duchy. It was one of the most desirable possessions, incessantly contended for by the different powers, the object of never ending contests. Raphael was born under Federigo of Montefeltro, to whom chiefly Urbino owed its renown. At that time, the noble lord, weary of the restless nature THE SPOSALIZIO. 13. of his life, had given himself up to the enjoyment of riches which his warlike career enabled him to amass. His first thought, was, naturally, to build ; palaces arose in Gubbio and Urbino. This afforded work not only to the architects, but to the artists, mechanics and artisans of every class. When Raph- ael came into the world the palace in Urbino was for the most part, finished ; but an undertaking of this kind could not be without lasting effect. Raph- ael did not, like Leonardo and Michael Angelo, grow up in a whirl of opinions and public ambitions, which were nowhere found at that time, in such manifold variety as in Florence ; but, throughout his childish years these grand artistic enterprises of the duke must have had a stimulating influence on his mind. His father enjoyed the favor of the ruling family, and indeed the achievements of Federigo of Monte- feltro took such powerful hold of the imagination of Giovanni Santi that he felt moved to write a poem in which they were lauded, elaborately versed and rung out. It must have taken a long time to put together 20,000 Terzine (Dante's metre.) Federigo was no longer living to receive this tribute when it was finished, and the author pre- sented to his son Guidobaldo the volume which is to-day in the library of the Vatican. According to the preface Giovanni Santi, owing to severe losses by fire, was no longer able to support his family from the proceeds of his inherited estate and applied him- self to painting as a remunerative business ; Vasari,. 14 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. in the first edition of his biography will not allow Raphael's father the rank even of a mediocre painter, but in the edition of 1568 expresses himself somewhat more courteously. In our day Giovanni has found warm friends. To have been the father of his son has proved of advantage to him, as also to the Duke Federigo, whose palace, which had become dingy and dilapidated, is about to be re- stored. No one would think of taking this trouble if it did not stand in the " Strada di San Fran- cesco," which likewise contains the two little houses Giovanni Santi made into one, bearing an in- scription which tells us that here Raphael was born. It is quite as impossible to prove authentically that Raphael came into life in Urbino, and in this house, as it is to prove the day of his birth, which in contradistinction to Vasari's 28th of March, we postpone to the 6th of April, 1483. No mention of Raphael's birth is found in the family records. In his father's will his name appears for the first time, where he is spoken of as Giovanni Santi's only child. Of tangible memorials the Santi house contains to- day nothing belonging to Raphael and his parents, except a little Madonna painted upon the wall which was long revered as the work of Raphael's childish hands, but now passes for the work of his father, in which Magia, Raphael's mother, with her little son upon her lap, is supposed to be portrayed. In earlier times to which Passavant belonged, men discovered THE SPOSALIZIO. 15 Kaphael and Magia not only in this picture, but in the Madonnas, angels and Christ-children in many other of Giovanni Santi's works. These fancies are now pretty thoroughly dispelled. It is enough, how- ever, to say that Raphael came into the world in the spring of 1483, at Urbino. We would gladly add to this what Vasari tells of his earliest years, had not documents come to light among the archives of Urbino which place it beyond doubt that Vasari had little knowledge of the actual circumstances. Through these documents we first learn of Magia Santi's early death, of the stepmother who suc- ceeded to her place, and of Giovanni Santi's death, which followed hard upon it ; 1491, Magia died; 1492, Giovanni married Bernardina, the daughter of a goldsmith: in 1494 he died. Raphael was between ten and eleven years of age. Would Giovanni, as Vasari has it, really have taken him away from home at such a tender age and en- trusted him to Perugino ? The present biographer thinks Raphael remained in the Santi house in Ur- bino until after the death of his father, when a con- ference of the guardians took place, who, after care- fully looking about and testing the various masters, decided on Perugino, to whom Raphael was there- upon committed. Mere inventions ! but Passavant describes all this in a most sincere, convincing tone, as if he had attended at the meeting in the char- acter of an official reporter. Even so Vasari's history of Raphael's childhood 16 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. may have been a pure invention ; the cravings for art- istic completeness may have led him to think it ap- propriate to open his biography with a kind of over- ture. It is not necessary, however, to assume this. Vasari associated with Raphael's scholars, from whom he may have received a dim echo of the master's own childish reminiscences. Every one likes to rehearse early recollections. Therefore we have to con- sider the possibility that Vasari really did receive from others what he reported. Let us compare the mixture of knowledge and ignorance in his accounts of Michael Angelo's childhood, in the first edition of his book (1550.) It is all false, nevertheless it is possible he had heard it from Michael Angelo's relatives. For instance, we know that Michael Angelo was born in Caprese. Vasari in his first edition says he was born in Florence. And yet, to show Vasari's literary innocence, after having cor- rected this wrong statement in the second edition, he repeats it again in the same, in the Life of San- sovino, where we read that Michael Angelo was born in the Via Ghibellina, Florence. I quote this sim- ply to show that notwithstanding Vasari's assurance, and the inscription on the house, how little confi- dence we can feel that Raphael was born in the street " San Francesco " in Urbino.* It seems to me that the truth of Vasari's story of * Raphael styles himself "Urbinas; " but even so Michael Angela calls himself " Florentine)," and Holbein is called "Basiliensis," although he was not born in Basle. THE SPOSALIZIO. 17 Raphael's childhood must be tested rather by its general tenor than by chronology. Raphael's father, says Vasari, perceived that the child would learn nothing in his workshop at Urbino. Without doubt Giovanni was clear-sighted enough to be convinced of this. And further, because his own education had been neglected, he felt the greater anxiety that his son should at least be taught something. This corresponds to the actual facts of the case ; we read in Giovanni's preface to his poem how and why he first became in later years a painter. We realize nothing so fully in mature life as the want of those things which can only be thoroughly learned in our youth. Now supposing Vasari did not know that Raphael was put under Perugino as a little child. Furthermore, if Vasari asserts that Raphael's father did not immediately find Perugino in Perugia, this also may correspond with the truth if we assume that Raphael was carried there as early as 1491. For, by chance, in March, 1491, we find Perugino (who changed his place of residence very frequently) in the town of Perugia. It is also credible that Gio- vanni did some painting to make the most of his time in Perugia. In that day there was everywhere and always enough for a painter to do, and Vasari's statement that Santi painted in San Francesco at Perugia seems to intimate that he himself had seen paintings there by his hand. In the Life of Peru- gino, Vasari relates (in both editions) that Giovanni Santi, Raphael, and Perugino worked many years 18 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. together. Of this statement, as it lies before us, we can indeed make nothing ; but perhaps again the fact was simply this, that paintings by Giovanni Santi were to be found in Perugia. Of the modern school no one has assumed that Giovanni himself took the little Raphael to Perugia. Some biographers transfer him immediately upon the death of his father from the parental roof to the hands of the new master at Perugia. Others again are of the opinion that there must have been a tran- sition period when he was under the influence of Signorelli. Some also believe in a relation to Timo- teo della Vite, who, as Perugino's former scholar, afterward went to Francia and came back to Ur- bino just at the time when Raphael might have learned much from him. Still others will not con- cede that Raphael was ever apprenticed to Perugino, but maintain that from the first he was his assist- ant.* With this is associated the differences as to the year in which it is said Raphael came to Peru- gia. Crowe and Cavalcaselle were formerly satisfied (as 1 was at first) with the average date " 1500." Now they insist on " 1495." And this because they assume between the child that had everything to learn and the able assistant of Perugino, a period in which Raphael was unable to assist the master with his hands, yet by his mere presence exercised over him such an inspiring influence as to cause a * This is Rumohr's opinion. Schmarsow and Viacher are for Sigiiorelli. THE SPOSALIZIO. 19 new departure in Perugino's artistic labors ; and this they undertake to prove. Many and various are the opinions brought forward and accepted on this point only to be rejected again. And since to Giovanni Santi or the guardians so many ways stood open, why was Raphael sent to Perugino rather than another ? Why not to Man- tegna, Melozzo da Forli, Leonardo, or Piero della Francesca ? Perhaps because Perugino was at that time the most employed and popular of the masters, for the Orvietons likewise only decided on Signorelli when Perugino would not come, and Leonardo was in Milan too far away. Clearly Giovanni Santi had an ideal view of Perugiuo, whom he speaks of in his poem in con- junction with Leonardo as being the painter of all that was graceful and lovable, if I understand the passage rightly : " due giovin par d'etade e par d'amori." As Leonardo borrowed from Verrochio that pe- culiar smile which consists in a delicate play of the muscles setting the lips only in motion, and which was so extensively imitated by his school : even so Peru- gino derived from the same source a sweetly tender expression lingering about the mouth, which capti- vated his pupils and his public, and is found re- flected in the earliest heads by Raphael. But about the time that Raphael came to him, no matter precisely when (between 1495 and 1500) this delicate facial expression had stiffened into a kind 20 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. of uniform mask, given to every one of his char- acters ; the pretty faces " vultus bellini" which Giovio later found so much fault with, saying that after Raphael and Michael Angelo came, nobody could bear them any longer. This finishing touch, which one might call a mechanically added flavor, was always given, together with a certain kind of drapery and the same pose of the hands and feet which we see likewise repeated in Raphael's first productions. ^ How far Giovanni Santi, and even Raphael him- self, yielded to the charm of this Peruginesque beauty, I am the less inclined to ask, however, be- cause no satisfactory answer could be given : of vastly more importance is it that we should know into what intellectual atmosphere Raphael entered as a child with Perugino. We know of Michael Angelo that he fell into the hands of Polizian in the Palazzo Medici, and then how Savonarola took possession of him ; of his reading Dante, Petrarch and the Bible. The maturity of soul which shines forth from the Sposalizio, painted when Raphael was twenty years old, imposes on us the task of inquiring whence he could have attained such mental development. Rumohr was the first to call attention to the fact that Perugino at the time Raphael came to him had given himself over to a purely mechanical way of painting. Nevertheless, even if a second rate master he was still among the greatest, in the frescoes of the Sistine chapel, painted between 1480-90, ac- THE SPOSALIZIO. 21 cording to the decision of the Pope, he excelled all other masters.* Here he achieved a double triumph, for the others being Florentines, from this moment he had an established position in Florence. But even these great frescoes, which remain intact to-day, do not show Perugino to be the illustrator of ideas. To have seen them has never been to anybody a soul-felt experience. Even the Pieta, his most re- nowned work, does not leave behind this impression. Perugino raised himself to a respectable height, and profited by the position gained in a business-like way. While his trade was thus flourishing Raphael came to him. That such a nature through the pres- ence of a child could have been saved from degen- erating into the mere mechanic does not sound to me credible. Crowe and Cavalcaselle overestimate Perugino's intellectual' possibilities. If Raphael's truth to nature, his feeling for the spiritual meaning of what he painted, his genuine and not merely arti- ficial loveliness was due to any foreign influence, it was not to Perugino's. In spite of this, a man like Perugino, who pursued his way with such certainty, on whom honors and commissions were lavished, who attracted to himself so many scholars, must have been, if only a second rate artist, what we call a character. How gladly would we know something of his conversation ! Over the superior natures with whom he came in contact while young, Crowe and Cavalcaselle re- * Giovio. 22 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. peatedly enlarge. With Verrochio, who certainly was an original, he studied, and Leonardo, of a no less remarkable nature, was the friend of his youth. If Giovanni Santi in those verses treats of Peru- gino and Leonardo as being a pair and alike, the sim- ilarity may have been limited to their experience as artists. They had come at the same age out of the same studios, and had attained to a like renown; but in Vasari we find assertions tending to prove that these two men had other affinities. In Vasari's first edition a slur is cast on the orthodoxy of Leon- ardo's faith ; in the second edition this is left out ; the same reproaches are heaped upon Perugino in 1550, and likewise expunged in the edition of 1568. Perugino, so says the edition of 1550, did not believe in immortality " into this brain of porphyry the true faith never could force its way." To what does this refer in either case ? Perugino had risen by hard labor ; through his industry had worked his way upward ; married in his old age a beautiful young woman, and took delight in adorning her, (this is just about the time that Raphael came to him). His portraits, in the huge strength of the under jaw, betray a certain brute force. How near did Raphael stand to this man spiritually who filled as it were a father's place to him ? At the close of the Quattro- cento men bore the different relations toward eccle- siastical matters of scoffing indifference and submis- sive attachment with a leaning toward the ancient THE SPOSALIZIO. , 23 philosophers. The question is, which position are we to assign to Perugino ? He was at work in the Sistine chapel just at the time when a reverence for ancient philosophy found the freest expression in Rome. 1 must content myself for the present with thus pointing out the direction in which investigation might be pursued. Yet one remark I add ; if we look at the numerous drawings and paintings at- tributed to the youthful Raphael, with this in view, it is a matter of indifference whether we ascribe them to him or not. They contain no revelation of spiritual development. So far it is no loss that in Vasari we find nothing but the general statement that Raphael as a child helped Perugino. 3. Two of Raphael's paintings still exist, out of the three which Vasari mentions as having been executed, before the Sposalizio (1504) ; the crucifix with his name inscribed on it (now in England), and the Coronation of the Virgin. All traces have disap- peared of the piece composed for San Agostino in Cittk di Castello. In regard to these two I agree with Vasari, that it is impossible to distinguish them from the paintings by Perugino or his school. Concerning the Coronation of the Virgin, which 24 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. may have been painted in or about the year 1503, facts, however, have come to light which are of a puzzling nature, and show how little we really know about Raphael's apprenticeship. This picture is the earliest of which we can say with any certainty that Raphael worked upon it. It stands well preserved in the gallery of the Vatican a large panel, longer than it is broad, the paint- ing delicate and carefully executed. Below are the Apostles gathered around Mary's empty sarcopha- gus, out of which flowers are springing, all eyes directed above, where, upon a clouded area which extends across the picture, dividing it, Mary sits on a throne, inclining her head to Christ, opposite her, to receive the crown which, with upraised arms, he holds above her. Angel forms surround them. We often find these two scenes thus united in one picture ; but often again Mary represented alone above the open sarcophagus as being raised to Heaven. In a work of this kind we cannot blame the artist for combining two separate actions the one below, the other above ; we must study each scene by itself, and think of the combination as desired by the person who had ordered the painting.* * Some assume that even in this work, instead of being crowned, JNIary was to have appeared alone on the clouds, attended only by the same angels with their musical instruments. The Pesth Museum has a pen and ink drawing, ascribed to Raphael, and valued as being the original sketch tor this composition. But the Pestb. drawings are not by Raphael. THE SPOSALIZIO. 25 It is not only because Vasari mentions the Coro- nation of the Virgin as a work of Raphael's, but also on account of the graceful execution of some portions of the picture that we ascribe it to him. But now we notice in Vasari a contradiction. In the first edition he touches upon the picture only incidentally. Here he says that Raphael in the beginning adhered so closely to Perugino's forms that no one could distinguish his figures from those of his master as proved in San Francesco (at Perugia), where some figures by Raphael's hand were found among those by Perugino's. Nothing more ! The picture in 1550 seemed to Vasari of so little importance that he neither describes it nor so much as mentions it by name. In the second edition he is more explicit. He names the family by whose order Raphael executed the work ; then describes it minutely down to the very predella, and concludes with the assertion that even shoidd it seem to be the work of Perugino, it certainly was painted by Raphael. Added to this, a lost letter of Raphael's has later come to light, in which he gives vent to his joy at receiving this commission. What formerly made the centre of attraction in this picture was the belief that Raphael had given a portrait of himself in one of the Apostles an hypothesis which Passavant warmly espouses. We of this day are able to judge all these things from a new standpoint. For some of the figures in the Coronation of Mary 26 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. we find the studies in silver point by Raphael's hand, which only in modern times have been made completely accessible to us through photographs. They are studies from nature, and unquestionably genuine. One naturally feels diffident about assert- ing this so decidedly ; but it seems to me that no one who is able to recognize Raphael's work any- where will feel the slightest hesitation about these drawings. To me these studies for the Coronation are the earliest incontestable specimens of Raphael- esque handling. Raphael must have drawn them in his eighteenth year, or thereabouts. Nothing of the uncertainty of a beginner is per- ceptible in them. The drawing shows firmness and a full understanding of nature. They have some- thing modern about them something we like to call " spirituelle." The modelling and shading, and a certain indifference to clearly defined outlines, reveals an artist who has already drawn much, and whom eyes and hand obey. But it is most astonish- ing that the various attitudes he makes his model assume hardly remind us, even remotely, of Peru- gino ; never was Perugino or any one of his best scholars capable of discerning nature with such sci- entific accuracy ; nor, more than all, could they have drawn one such stroke. One who could draw like this had already risen above school and manner to the dignity of Master. Raphael did no better five years later in his sketches for the Camera della Segnatura. THE SPOSALIZIO. 27 But now let us examine the figures in the Corona- tion of the Virgin, as the picture stands in the Vat- ican, to which these silver point drawings are said to have formed the preparatory studies. The first is one of the upper figures, an angel playing ; the second is the head of this same angel with the hand holding the bow ; the third, the head of the Apostle Thomas (in the middle of the group below), with the hands holding the girdle of the virgin which has fallen from heaven, for, according to the legend, Thomas also doubted the assumption of Mary, and she threw her girdle down to him from the clouds. The excellent photographs of the picture and the equally excellent ones of the silver point studies now enable us to judge with certainty. There is nothing in the painted picture which betrays the use of these crayon studies of Raphael's. Pretty, dainty and af- fected in attitude and facial expression, in the action of the hands and fall of the draperies, these figures as seen in the painting differ so little from the rest in outline, modelling and color, that no one would suspect the hand of an assistant, and certainly not that of Raphael. We ask for what purpose Raph- ael drew these studies, and farther, were they at the command of whoever executed the figures in question in the painting? Formerly I knew only the studies for the Apostle Thomas, and believed myself justified in assuming that Raphael felt compelled to follow Perugino be- cause his public was thoroughly accustomed to his 28 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. style, and, though he had drawn his sketches from nature, with brush in hand, felt he must work so that his patrons should discover no difference be- tween his painting and that of Perugino's. Now, however, that the designs for the musical angel have been published, this explanation no longer suffices. Why, if Raphael adhered so closely to Perugino, did he work after nature at all ? Why take so much pains to draw these figures according to the living model, when a blind repetition of the forms of his Master would have made the work so much easier ? The painting Vasari speaks of before the Sposalizio the crucifix now in England with Raphael's name upon it shows likewise Peruginesque figures with all their affected peculiarities. Here we know no- thing of any studies from nature. It is quite pos- sible they may have been lost, but Lermolieff has called attention to and proved the original by Peru- gino, from which the single figures in this composi- tion were copied : why did Raphael proceed other- wise in the Coronation of Mary ? Why are the studies so full of life, and the painting itself in com- parison so dead ? This question revolves about cer- tain details which are at present incomprehensible. The angel is playing on the violin ; in the studies we find a firm correct position of the fingers hands which guide the bow and press the strings ; in the painted picture, on the contrary, are strained characterless fingers without power or grasp. One of the unmistakable signs of all Raphaelesque art is THE SPOSALIZIO. 29 the steadiness with which the figures stand on their feet. Thus we see the angel in the drawing in a firm, natural pose, whilst in the painting it appears upon the clouds with a kind of mincing air and gait. Compare the hands of the Apostle Thomas in the painting and in the drawing : how life-like the ac- tion in the latter ! And so with all the rest wher- ever we make the comparison. I do not know how to account for this. But now that we have these crayon studies side by side with the painted Coronation of Mary, farther conclusions as to Eaphael's apprenticeship under Perugino suggest themselves which seem to me in- controvertible. There is a considerable number of pictures and drawings ascribed to Raphael assumed to belong to his first Peruginesque period. (To these belong the greater part of the Raphael Madon- nas in the Berlin gallery). They are awarded to Raphael and denied to Perugino, as being too re- fined, too warm and loving, too innocent and good for the latter. It was thought only a youthful hand could have created them. In consonance with these notions and going still deeper men next discovered portions of the works by Perugino which they said must have been done by Raphael. In the frescoes of the Cambio at Perugia there are some things which, according to the belief of enthusiasts, could have been painted by none other than Raphael. From this time on, it seems to me, such opinions must be discarded ; the crayon studies for the Coro- 30 ' THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. nation of Mary prove that if Raphael did assert his individuality in Perugino's workshop, it was not done by trying to exceed the master in his peculiar style of overwrought sweetness, but by looking straight at Nature herself, and representing her as she was and as his eyes discerned her. Somewhere about the same time in which the silver point studies were made, we have farther studies for a second Coronation of the Virgin undertaken a little later (finished only after his death by his scholars) ; these drawings, likewise done with silver point cor- respond in conception and treatment to the studies for the Coronation in the Vatican, and show Raph- ael wholly freed from the manner of Perugino. Here, too, he brings out in a masterly way the es- sential parts, and merely indicates what, as being the momentary aim of the studies, is only of second- ary importance. We observe how well the joints are defined, how the hands seem fairly to grasp and how firmly the figures stand on their feet. Like- wise for the fresco in San Severe which remained unfinished when Raphael, in 1505, left Perugia not to return as it proved we have a study which belongs to the same category with those which have been discussed. Nothing therefore remains for us, with these draw- ings before us, but to refuse to acknowledge Raphael as the author of most of the things attributed to him in this epoch. For example, until now a pen and ink drawing of an Annunciation for the predella to THE SPOSALIZIO. 31 the first Coronation of Mary passed without ques- tion for Raphael's ; but compared with these crayon studies for Thomas and the violin-playing angel, it loses all pretension to Raphael's work. How great the number of pictures and drawings which tested from this point of view are to be re- jected, Passavant's catalogue of the works shows.* Among the youthful productions ascribed by Passavant, and other modern biographers, to Raph- ael, there are exquisitely refined and delicate paint- ings, whose origin, up to this time, no one has ever doubted myself included ; the Madonna Con- nestabile in St. Petersburg, the Terranuova in the Berlin Gallery and others. From all works of doubtful origin let us now turn aside and allow Raphael to emerge from obscurity with his Sposalizio, as a finished painter in 1504. The picture itself strikes us almost like a sudden apparition, inasmuch as no studies for it are extant, f 4. The Sposalizio is in the Brera at Milan. For three hundred years it was as good as buried in * I make but one exception, viz., in the case of the so-called Venetian Sketchbook of almost a hundred pages, in which, how- ever, we see no studies from Nature, but copies of foreign produc- tions made during Raphael's apprenticeship. t The pen and ink drawing for the head of Mary must be rejected. 32 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Citta di Castello, and was probably unknown even to Vasari's contemporaries. Scarcely one of Raph- ael's Roman friends can ever have seen the picture. No engraving was made of it during the Cinque- cento. Nowhere do we find it mentioned, except by Vasari, although he assures us that the work made Raphael renowned. No one of the travellers who in later centuries wandered over Italy for the sake of her art treasures, has recorded his admiration of it. Bottari in his edition of Vasari contents himself with the mere mention of it ; he could hardly have seen the picture himself. It was only after the French had carried it to Paris, cleaned it and returned it in 1817, that the work began to take its proper rank. To-day innumerable people have seen and criticised the picture in Milan. Through excellent engravings, and in recent days by photographs, it has been spread over the civilized globe. Next to the Sistine Ma- donna, it may be considered Raphael's most popular work. In the figures of this composition we recognize types of all the different ages of man, which allow everyone who stands before it, whether young or old, to feel as if the artist had been the confidant of all the thoughts and feelings appropriate to his period of life. Let me conjure before the imagination of my readers these forms : Upon the open space in front of a temple which rises in the background, the marriage is being solemnized. Between two parties of men and wo- THE SPOSALIZIO. 33 men who to the right and left have accompanied the bride and groom, stands the priest clasping Mary's and Joseph's hands at the wrists, as we find it in all the representations.* Joseph presents the ring, holding it firmly, whilst Mary, with gently out- stretched fingers and hand wholly given over to the guidance of the priest, is waiting to receive it. Joseph, with eyes fastened upon the ring and head bowed as if communing with himself, on his part also leaves the transfer of the ring wholly to the priest. Thus each of the three principal characters has his own thoughts and his share in what interests all. The three form a perfectly symmetrical centre, around which on both sides the wedding guests are gathered. To the left, about Mary, the women ; to the right, around Joseph, the men. In front of Joseph is a youth who is breaking a rod across his knee, which not having blossomed, has failed to bring him luck. Every one of the numerous figures is full of life, free and natural, and the sym- metry of the grouping is felt rather than seen. But the ring forms so precisely the centre of the compo- sition, that if a line were drawn through the middle of the picture it must pass through it. One might suspect that Raphael made the ring thus conspicu- ous because its possession was to Perugia a title of renown. In Forster's Life of Raphael we are told what made the ring so valuable to Perugia, and in what a strange way it came into possession of it. * Tener lo rtito alia sposa. 34 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. A costly box enshrines it to-day in the cathedral there, and for the chapel in which it was placed Perugino painted the Sposalizio now in Caen shortly before Raphael's was executed, which was formerly regarded as the model he simply copied. But neither here, nor, if we as others do, assume the predella of a painting in Fano by Perugino (1497) to be Raph- ael's work, do we hit the truth. The pose of the figures was traditional, the arrangement common property, but no single one of the figures in Raph- ael's Sposalizio could have been created by Peru- gino before Raphael's advent. We compare the positions of the hands and feet in Perugino's and Raphael's pictures, and in the latter compare them with one another. If anything could make me sus- pect the Coronation of the Virgin not to be Raphael's work, it would be such comparisons. With admi- rable distinctions Raphael has handled these parts in the Sposalizio, with the taste, or to use the right word, the elegance peculiar to him alone. Raphael's elegance obtrudes itself nowhere, as with other art- ists is so often the case. Beside this the harmony of his colors, which although hitting against one an- other almost sharply, still have the effect of a bed of flowers whose varied hues combine agreeably. A youthful delight in the brilliancy of color is appar- ent, which later yielded to a different taste. Like Diirer, Raphael might have confessed in his ripest years, that while young he loved a certain garish- ness of coloring, such as he had afterward renounced. The Sposalizio is a youthful work. . THE SPOSALIZIO. In comparison with the Entombment i: r. . t seem like a juvenile effort, as the Entcn.l n:e~t again, compared with the paintings in the Camera della Segnatura, seems the beginning of a transi- tion ; we should not, however, place the Sposalizio beside Raphael's own maturer creations, but contrast it with the preceding and contemporary paintings by other masters. The Sposalizio might be com- pared to the first of Beethoven's compositions, which remind us of Haydn. It strikes me that if we could only place it rightly, we might elicit from the work answers to many questions concerning Raphael's early life. Let us try again to find our way into his father's house, not to gratify curiosity regarding the events of his outward life, in which the day and hour can be named, but with far more general aims. Now, whether Raphael left Urbino and went to Perugino in 1491 or 1495, or not until 1500 in 1504, when the Sposalizio was finished, he surely had been long out of the reach of his father's influ- ence ; Raphael was twenty-one, his father had been dead ten years. What had been working in him during this time ? Had the ideas died out which he had carried from Urbino, or did some relic of his childish years still live within him to blossom afresh in an unexpected hour? Let us then search for traces of Giovanni Santi's influence in Raphael's development. Giovanni Santi was no ordinary man. There is a 36 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. philosophy of life in his poem which grew largely out of his personal experience, yet was also in part gleaned from books. He must have read a great deal to be able to write as he did. He attempts to give in this poem a review of the intellectual labors of his own and earlier times, and awards the first rank not to artists, but to poets and historians. It seems to me that if painting could have satisfied Giovanni's craving to live in an ideal world, he would never have devoted so much of his time to the poetic art. His poem was a tranquilizing work. We see one worn and oppressed with family burdens and manual labor, possibly in feeble health, who finds relief in stringing verses together wherein he glori- fies his age and the heroic deeds of his prince. Day by day through many years he must have retreated from the world to discharge his poetic task. The need of concentration and of oblivion to the worries and pettinesses of everyday life speaks to us out of these verses. More than once we meet with this ex- pression in them, " i pensieri in me rivolti," and in one of Raphael's sonnets the same strain recurs. Campori has found two letters in which, shortly before his death, Raphael's father is mentioned. Giovanni had gone to Mantua to paint a portrait of a cardinal. He must have returned to Urbino ill. Once more he makes an attempt to finish this Man- tuan work, and begins beside a portrait of Elizabetta herself, the new duchess who wrote those letters, but again he is obliged to stop short ; he lies down and THE SPOSALIZIO. 37 dies. On the 19th of August the duchess communi- cates to her sister, Isabella d' Este, the tidings of the death of Giovanni, who left the world " clear in mind and strong in faith." No mention is made of Raphael. Had he not already left the paternal roof we must have seen the boy, then eleven years of age, among those who took part in the funeral rites. A variety of characters, dimly outlined, now ap- pear upon the stage : The step-mother who is en- ceinte, her father the goldsmith Parte, who acts as her proxy in the lawsuits which ensue, a daughter Elizabetta (Raphael's sister), born soon after*, a married aunt on the father's side who moved into the Santi house, an uncle on his mother's side, who became his guardian, &c. Recent biographers have sought to give to these people the semblance of in- dividuality. But these differences are of no account almost every family, in its good and bad members, is a type of the great human family, f Raphael has mingled with his ideal figures many portraits of his contemporaries : I have tried to dis- * She died young. A picture of a woman found in the Tribuna at Florence, by some ascribed to Raphael, but by others rightly denied to be his, is known as Raphael's sister. It has nothing to do with her or with him. t Unsatisfactory fragments published from the archives relative to the distribution of the Santi property created all sorts of sus- picions as to the character of these people, which copied from one book to another, finally took on the air of facts. The publication entire of these documents, and in consequence a correct interpre- tation of them has done away with all this. Jahrb. der pr. Kunstsamml, 1882. Heft II. " Drei Actenstucke aus dem Archive von Urbino " often quoted without iny name. 38 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. cover if his father is anywhere to be seen in the Parnassus, or in the School of Athens, where Raph- ael introduces himself. The thought has occurred to me whether Joseph, in the Sposalizio, may not be the idealized form of his father, for this figure has something marked and individual. The legends here leave the artist full scope. In Lehner's History of Mary-worship we find a great variety of ideas among the early Christians regard- ing Joseph's age. There was one version according to which he took Mary to wife when a very old man, only to protect her as a father together with his own children. The artists might conceive him as they would. How unbiassed they were appears when whole series of events from Mary's life are represented. The most beautiful of them is Diirer's, executed at the time when Raphael was painting the Sposalizio. Diirer's picture of this same scene (though only a woodcut) is next to Raphael's, the finest. Diirer represents Joseph compared with Mary as a very old man, who seems to approach only at the priest's command. There is some hesi- tation in his manner, as if he, a common man, felt bashful in accepting such high honor. In the succeeding pictures Diirer's conception of Joseph is varied. He does not attempt to preserve any similarity. In the Flight into Egypt and at his carpenter's bench, Joseph is a vigorous man in the prime of life, with full hair and beard, and quite a different face from that in the wedding THE SPOSALIZIO. 39 scene. Raphael takes the same liberty, and in his Madonna pictures Joseph varies, being now bald and then with head well-covered with hair, full beard, or smooth chin, straight or curly ' locks. Raphael gave him more importance in the Sposa- lizio than he ever did afterwards. As the Christ- child in his later works seems the embodiment of our ideal conception of a child, Joseph and Mary here stand before us as the ideal of married people. Although, naturally, by their very act they are the principal characters in the scene, Raphael uses a pe- culiar means by which to bring them into still greater prominence. It may be thought we are scrutinizing too closely that we mention so insignifi- cant an artifice. How consciously Raphael resorted to it, however, is shown in his last Madonna (the Sistine), when he secured by this means a like effect. Let me first speak of the Dresden picture. The raiment of the Madonna has this peculiarity, that the fabrics are not recognizable of w r hich the veil and garment are woven. We may interpret this as. showing that Mary, wrapt in ethereal vesture, had. naught to do with varying human fashions. What fills the eye when gazing up at her are the features,, the hands and the unclad -feet. The dress is of no moment. The impression of majesty, elevated above chance and change which this vision pro- duces, Raphael has imperceptibly enhanced by placing on either side of Mary a saint elaborately 40 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. decked out in all the wealth of earthly splendor. Saint Barbara, just below Mary to the right, with feet sinking into the clouds, wears a dress of studied art and finish, whilst her hair betrays the same marked attention. Quite in harmony with it, too, is the motion of her hand. Even the inclination of her head is characteristic of princely bearing. So, too, with the saint on the other side whose costly habiliments indicate the high ecclesiastical potentate. The contrast between these two figures and Mary who needs nothing of the sort tends to exalt her nature and to produce an effect, all the more positive that it does not seem to have been planned. In the same way Raphael in the Sposalizio has elevated Joseph and Mary above their surround- ings. All the other figures, the priest included, are distinguished by their aristocratic bearing and ele- gance of dress. The richness of the skirt worn by the young woman to the left, as apparent in the stiff straight folds where it touches the ground, the close-fitting garment which yields to the supple curves of the body as the youth on the right is try- ing to break the rod over his knee, the dainty hair and hat ornaments worn by the rest of the figures plainly show the intention to bring before us a proud wedding party in holiday attire : in contrast, how plain Mary's dress, and Joseph's robe how scant, barely what is necessary ! His feet are with- out covering ; nothing outward mars the expression of solemnity as he advances, nor with Mary of peace- THE SPOSALIZIO. 41 ful acquiescence in her fate. Surely Raphael must have been aware how great the effect of such con- trasts would be. The vision of Joseph and Mary thus lifted above earthly accidents takes powerful hold of us. It is no fantastic caprice to test works of art by qualities of the highest kind like this ; on the contrary, I believe we may speak of this effect of the painting as of a real attribute. I will not repeat my conjecture that when Raphael represented Joseph, thus transfigured in his early manhood, far away recollections of his father entered into his conception of the figure. "But it is certainly strik- ing how totally different Joseph here appears from the Joseph in all his later works. Everywhere else he is a man more or less advanced in years, who plays his honorable subordinate part not making himself one jot more conspicuous than is necessary, whilst in the Sposalizio, next to Mary, he is the most distinguished figure. Might not Raphael have been reminded of the day when he saw his father married for the second time ? Do we not all remember as long as we live the wide outlooks we had as children, when the narrow blue lines of distant mountains seemed to hint that beyond in the infinite horizon the unattainable was awaiting us? Raphael's Sposalizio opens in the background one of these glances into the bright far-off land, quite as deep and entranc- ing as in the Disputa, where our eyes seem to penetrate over the altar into the Eternal beyond. It 42 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. is no accident that these perspectives occur in all Raphael's first works. In Urbino, as a child, he had looked down upon the broad forests which on all sides clothed the steep height on which the town was built. I associate also with Raphael's childhood in TJr- l>ino the marvellous repose which breathes from some of his works. The Madonna, known as the Sedia, from the little low chair in which the virgin is sitting, has in it more of the wonderful calm which environs the soul of a child at home than any other Madonna picture. Only as an echo of his own personal recollections could one feel this so as to be able to paint it. How the child looks at us from this picture ! just as children do who after sleeping open their eyes wide, as though awake, although in reality they are still lost in dreams. No painter since the world stood, ever knew how to paint this as Raphael did. and no one ever felt it as he. Only Diirer has attained to something like it, though in a different way, when in his Life of Mary he pictures her sitting beside the cradle surrounded by angels who have taken the housekeeping into their own liands, while God, the Father, in a long mantle is benignantly looking down from the heavenly heights. And Diirer, too, has depicted the fairy dreams into which life first resolves itself in the mind of a child. This atmosphere of repose pervades the Sposa- lizio. Standing before works of high Art we are THE SPOSALIZIO. 43 moved to speak low as if the artist himself stood be- hind us and was hearing all that was said. And in this place another master must be mentioned as having influenced Raphael's Art even if no rela- tion of scholar is to be assumed : Piero della Fran- cesca. If we assume that Raphael up to the death of his father, and perhaps longer, remained in Urbino, he must, before entering Perugino's studio, have ex- perienced a change in his artistic views. For Gio- vanni Santi and Melozzo da Forli, and Signorelli and the Flemish masters, who painted in Urbino, with whom Raphael probably had some personal in- tercourse, all belonged to a realistic school differ- ing widely from Perugino's Florentine manner. The founder of the Umbrian school, Piero della Fran- cesca, executed his principal work long before Raphael's birth ; but he was still living when Raph- ael painted in Citta di Castello not far from his little town. Piero della Francesca lent to his rep- resentations a breath of stern reality which sur- rounded his figures like a sharp current of air, fending off that dramatic festal element of Floren- tine Art elevated above reality, which Perugino, having acquired through Verrochio, sought to give his figures. The first example of this Florentine style I find in Ghiberti's superlative compositions on the bronze doors of San Giovanni in Florence where the prin- cipal events of the New and Old Testament are so 44 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. graphically depicted as to thrill us like the strophes of a grand tragedy. I have here in mind, not the world-renowned second door, the Door of Paradise, because Ghiberti's first door, with its scenes from the Life of Christ, affected to a vastly greater de- gree the views of all the Florentine masters who worked with and after him. No painter, although this work in truth belongs to sculpture, has repre- sented these events, in a few figures, with such powerful dramatic pathos. Ghiberti was the artist who for a whole century gave the tone in Florence, and Perugino belonged to those who sought to fol- low in his footsteps.* The works of Piero della Francesca, which Raph- ael must have seen in Perugia, showed another way of representing history. At a superficial glance we should perhaps say that Piero's figures, in compari- son with those of the Florentine school, have a cer- tain stiffness of bearing. But looking deeper there is something to be said in favor of this immobility. Whenever scenes of passion, or great bodily ex- ertion are unrolled before our eyes upon the stage, they are attended by violent gestures and an out- burst of a perfect lava-stream of words ; on recalling such scenes in every-day life, however, in which we have ourselves taken part, we find very little trace of either of these elements ; it seems to us, on the contrary, as if the most important deeds had been * Leonardo's beginnings, too, were made by passing through the school of Verrochio. THE SPOSALIZIO. 45 done silently and that, however great may have been the display of physical strength, the gesticula- tion was always moderate. Piero della Francesca and his school painted their events according to the natural course of things. Among his half-destroyed wall-paintings at Arezzo is represented the drown- ing of the vanquished Maxentius in the river. The victorious body of cavalry reached the shore ; and on horseback, in full armor, with lances raised and set at rest, they are silently watching the death struggle of Maxentius, who with his horse is sinking before their very eyes. Another of Piero's frescoes pictures the Empress Helena, just at the moment when the cross of Christ, which had been deeply buried in the earth, is discovered and set up before her. A feel- ing of the motionless attention with which she, in the midst of her women, is gazing at the price- less treasure, and of the mute working on of the men who lift it out of the depth, creeps over us as we study it. There is not an unnecessary move- ment of the limbs ; each man raises and supports only so much as he, in his place, has to do. Not a word is spoken ; expectation rules the scene. The most beautiful work, however, of Piero's is the Bap- tism of Christ in the London National Gallery. What solemnity in the bearing of Christ as he per- mits John to pour over him the water of the Jordan which is flowing in a shallow stream at his feet ! How modest the deportment of the assistant angels at his side ! How the trees, whose every leaf in the 46 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. dense foliage is distinctly outlined, seem even to hush their whispers that nothing may disturb the nearness to God, who, looking down from heaven as out of the far distance, makes his presence felt. Even the portraits of Piero della Francesca have this deep earnestness of conception, and Giovanni Santi's also possess this characteristic.* We will compare the same scene as Ghiberti represents it on the first door. How slight in * As lias been already remarked, Raphael's father seems to have been specially a portrait painter. In his altar pieces we find the patron of the work represented with more feeling and care than any of the other figures. Our Berlin painting by the master shows how very differently he treated the two classes of subjects in the picture. He b'y no means expended his best work on the saints; they look as if done to order, and are somewhat stiff and uncouth; while his patron, who kneels below on the left front, is handled with the greatest care, and in outline as well as coloring is greatly dis- tinguished above the principal personages as if Santi had re- served this figure for himself, leaving the saints to his assistants. There are many portraits in the manner of Piero della Francesca in the Italian collections, and among these some may be the work of Giovanni Santi. It would be difficult, however, to distinguish and prove them to be his though Santi's connection with Piero is distinctly asserted. Piero painted in Urbino long years before Raphael's birth, and Giovanni acted as mediator for the payment betweenhim and theDuke Signorelli was Piero's scholar and also one of Santi's personal friends. Of Piero's influence on Raphael, Crowe and Cavalcaselle have written, and lastly, of Signorelli's influence on Raphael, Vischer and Schmarsow. Not in Perugia only did works by Piero come before Raphael's eyes. He had al- ready seen them as a child in Urbino and in Citta di Castello in the same church for which the Sposalizio was painted, where Signorelli, as Piero's most distinguished scholar, had been at work. I have no direct proof that Raphael was familiar with these productions, but it is reasonable to suppose that he must have seen the pictures which in so many places must almost havo obtruded themselves on his notice. Assertions of this kind be- come questionable if given as positive facts, but they are signifi- cant and interesting if treated simply as possible and probable. THE SPOSALIZIO. 47 figure, and self-conscious, Christ stands there as if all mankind up to its most aristocratic lords and rulers were witnesses of the event his hand pa- thetically raised to bless, and his head bowed, from which the hair parted in the middle falls upon his shoulders in heavy curls. In a monologue, whose words the ministering angels, one at his right side, the other just on the point of descending, catch up and accompany as chorus, Christ seems to express the feelings which move him. John holds the pitcher reversed, from which the water streams over the Saviour's brow ; his attitude also expresses the consciousness of inferiority beside the Highest, whose instrument only he feels himself to be. His gestures, too, seem calculated to impress an au- dience. This theatrical element, this regard for an imaginary audience, preconceived as critic and judge, characterizes every work of Florentine Art. In .Raphael's Sposalizio we have before us a union of both elements, the dramatic grace which ever distinguishes him as a scholar of the Florentine school, and the silent depth of the Umbrian which was his inheritance and among his earliest im- pressions. We shall see how he first, under the influence of Michael Angelo, abandons this Umbrian manner and passes over to the more dramatic movement of the Florentines, in which his figures no longer live and work silently, but seem to speak and act. We shall also see how after Raphael becomes a Roman, 48 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. the edifices and ruins of Rome find place in his back- grounds, so that we seldom have the broad sweep down from the heights or a glimpse into the hazy distance. And finally, we shall see how in his very last days this Umbrian repose again breaks through, tempting him, as it had his father before him, by a review of the past, to lonely intellectual labor. THE ENTOMBMENT. CHAPTER II. THE ENTOMBMENT. WHEN Raphael first came to Florence, what brought him thither, how long he stayed, cannot be positively ascertained from any of the existing records. Between the Sposalizio (1504) and the Entombment (1507) may be placed a number of things which reveal transition stages in his artistic development ; and together with the drawings for these paintings, in part preserved, exhibit an indus- try which fills us with amazement. The extraor- dinary working power which Raphael's later years disclosed he must have had even in the days of his apprenticeship, and is inconceivable, without extraor- dinary concentration of mind. I assume the year 1505 as the date of the Madonna painted for the nuns of St. Antonio in Perugia. Vasari does not mention it in his first edi- tion, possibly because the picture, being in a nun's convent, was inaccessible to him. It is said to be, to-day, in London, unsalable and in a wretched condition. I am still under the influence of the fresh impression the picture made upon me in 52 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Naples (1857) when I saw it there in the royal pal- ace. From it the unfortunate Juvara made the last large engraving from any of Raphael's works, made in Italy, in the manner of the old school.* For the figure of the Madonna herself, with the Christ-child clothed in her lap, a picture by Perugino supplied the standard. But the characteristic feature of the work does not lie here. The Virgin and the femi- nine saints, on either side of her throne, are in purely conventional attitudes. The most important figures in the composition are Peter and Paul, in the f oreground to the right and left two mighty Apostles in whom is shown Raphael's endeavor to come near to Nature and to rise to her simplicity. The figures in the Sposalizio have throughout some- thing delicate and shrinking, in comparison with these majestic saints whom he afterwards so often represented, contrasting them with one another Peter, in possession of the key, as ruler ; Paul, with the sword, as fighter. The representation of the Almighty is most singular and startlingly natural- istic, almost such as the German painters like to picture him, in the character of a benignant pa- triarch, enthroned from eternity, father and origin of all beings. Raphael's naturalism is here pro- nounced, and it affords another proof that his in- born gifts allied him to the Umbrian school. * In the Raphael Hall behind Sans Souoi (Potsdam) is a large copy of the picture in which, however, the coloring is a complete fail- THE ENTOMBMENT. , 53 The year 1505 is likewise the date of the fresco in San Severe, the first that Raphael ever painted- It was not completed until after his death, and then by Perugino, who outlived him. The figure of God the Father is effaced.* In later years the entire work has undergone a species of restoration, which has caused a painful excitement. Nothing remains of Raphael's own work but the outlines. There are two rows of saints sitting opposite one another, on banks of clouds, and an exquisite, free-hand draw- ing for them remains, which is unquestionably his. f A third design, at about the same time, if it had been executed, would perhaps have afforded us the most conclusive proofs of Raphael's development ; a Coronation of Mary, enthroned with Christ, and be- side them, to the right and left, in the foreground, St. Francis and St. Jerome. This work was ordered by the nuns of Monteluce, and in the letter, still extant, concerning it, Raphael is called " the best master according to the judgment of many citizens." We possess various sketches of the work, and a study from life for the two saints, which is one of the evidences that Raphael was even then a finished master. Every stroke is full of meaning, life-like, spirited and full of thought. On the whole, this work of Raphael's does not appear like that of a particularly youthful master, nor yet one from whom *In Keller's large engraving this figure has been supplied from the Disputa. t The sketch in it of Leonardo's Cavalry Encounter is a later addition. 54 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. much was to be expected. Through his whole life he was always ready and willing- to do what was asked of him. The quality of his work is unequal. If he cannot fulfil an order alone he relinquishes it in part, or even wholly, to his assistants. With equal willingness he steps in as assistant himself. Vasari says : If an artist desired Raphael's help he instantly abandoned his own work to be of ser- vice to him. It was out of kindness, perhaps, that he was led to make in Perugia (or in Siena itself, although we do not know how he came to be there), a number of pen and ink drawings for the Siena Cathedral Library, which Pinturicchio was to adorn with paintings. These designs are the last sign of Raphael's pre-Florentine epoch. As soon as he gained a firm footing in Florence, he threw aside the past, began to learn anew, and created his first great work, the Entombment. To be sure, the commission for the picture was given him in Peru- gia, and later on it was likewise executed in Pe- rugia, but it could only have been conceived in Florence. Atalanta Baglioni ordered the Entombment for the Chapel Baglioni, in San Francesco at Peru- gia. The Baglioni were the ruling family there, in Raphael's time. It is hardly necessary to add that, like all patrician families of the day, they had main- tained their outward position only by an uninter- rupted succession of crimes, committed within their immediate circle. For the most part what happened THE ENTOMBMENT. 55 went on behind the walls of the castle, which, in Raphael's time, commanded the city, although in the sixteenth century it had been already levelled to the ground. But oftentimes its gates had been opened, and the battles of the family fought out in the public square before the eyes of the citizens. There lay the dead ! Raphael may himself have experienced such outbreaks. It did not devolve upon the artists, in that day, to mirror these scenes of blood in their pictures, but rather to create representations which should elevate the peo- ple above them. Atalanta Baglioni had grown old, amid dark and direful scenes, which possibly led him to order a picture of the Entombment of Christ for the family chapel. In 1507 Raphael finished the painting at Perugia ; the work, however, was begun in Florence, and marked successive stages in his spiritual and intellectual development. For the first time we trace in one of Raphael's works a, gradual growth and progress. But it is not this r alone, which makes the Entombment representative of a new epoch. I must enter more fully into detail. The Sposalizio belonged to sacred history, but is; not in the New Testament. All Raphael's creations, up to this period, and also the works ascribed to him in his earliest years, have a legendary character. These illustrations of events in the life of Christ reveal no intention to impersonate him anew from his own deeper artistic conception ; they are simple 56 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. repetitions of traditional scenes to which the public were accustomed. Perugino himself had never ven- tured farther. Their key-note was furnished by the processions on high feast-days in the cities where events from Bible history were exhibited as spec- tacles, and flocks of citizens magnificently attired took part in them. We are not, therefore, aston- ished to meet in such pictures portraits of distin- guished citizens among the sacred personages, as if they all belonged together ; this corresponded entirely with the actual state of things where act- ors and spectators felt themselves as one and crowded upon each other. Therefore it is not at all startling to find in Perugino's painting of the Lord's Supper and the Delivery of the Keys in the Sistine Chapel persons dressed in the costume of his day taking part in these scenes. It is something like the photographs of festal proces- sions to-day, where the street public looking on is included as a legitimate element. If we find in the Quattrocento a large and im- portant space awarded to representations of this kind, where the first aim of the artists was to show by outward distinctions who the characters were and what was meant, after which they had full liberty to indulge their imagination in ornamental display of persons and scenery, there is still another treat- ment running parallel to this, where the artists omit such accessories and seek to represent the Life of Christ, as we are in the habit of saying, from a THE ENTOMBMENT. 57 strictly historic point of view. The broader mental development of the Quattrocento caused the purely human in Christ to be more and more understood, and the events of his life to be studied as an unfold- ing of individual character. And here also, as in the thirteenth century, sculpture took the lead. I come back to the doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence, which, to this day, afford glorious exam- ples for both painters and sculptors. The first door by Andrea Pisano already showed in the numerous scenes from the life of John, dramatic treatment so rendered that even those who do not know what they mean must be thrilled by them. But it was still the school of the Trecento, and only in Ghiberti's first door (the second of the three) does the dramatic element find full expression. Ghiberti's fame, it is true, dates from his second, known as the Door of Paradise ; but the first reveals the genius of this poet in bronze to a still more remarkable degree. As in the eighteenth cen- o o tury, heroic tragedy succeeded the prose domestic tragedy, so in the process of the fifteenth century development, Ghiberti's conceptions succeeded to Donatello's, whose peculiar talent the civic spirit of the Quattrocento had evoked. Ghiberti was the popular Florentine master the first half of the cen- tury, and Donatello the second. Ghiberti has a certain aristocratic manner. He lends to his figures an air of distinction and a sort of heroic elevation ; Donatello's manner, on the contrary, seems as if he 58 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. wished to manifest (especially in this time of his first efforts) direct disapproval of Ghiberti. There is a species of bravado in Donatello's way of render- ing nature a determination to produce startling effects. Nature, artless and unaffected, is seen on that first door of that Baptistery in Florence, where we make acquaintance in Andrea Pisano with Giotto's noblest scholar ; to this conception Dona- tello might have returned. But he did not wish to. If Ghiberti is dramatic, Donatello is theatrical. He makes use of nature to render his violently realistic scenes more credible, and finds this of greater im- portance sometimes than to be true to the living reality, which he does not approach unbiased, but hampered by his own proclivities. Ghiberti before him had not copied the antique, but absorbed the spirit of it. He revered it, and it became the in- spiration of his works. In his writings Ghiberti speaks of antique statues as being in all the details and niceties of the work beyond appreciation. (This has been often quoted.) Donatello, on the other hand, has borrowed from the ancient masters only some mechanical tricks. In Donatello's time jintique sculptures were sought and collected ; but when Ghiberti began there was only one here and there to be seen by chance, and of these he speaks as of curiosities. Ghiberti would never have ven- tured to restore one of these statues. The antique sculptors had excited his admiration to the point of reverence, and he would never have added the work THE ENTOMBMENT. 59 of his own hand to theirs ; but Donatello did not hesitate to supply missing arms and legs, thereby rendering them fitter, as mere ornamentation, for the palace of his patrons, the Medici. Beside Donatello now appeared Verrochio, who had more of the nature of Ghiberti, and Verrochio's pupils were Leonardo, Botticelli, and Perugino, also Signorelli original, independent geniuses whilst Donatello's scholars were mechanically trained to his manner and never rose above it. It was granted to Michael Angelo, on whom Raphael followed closely, to enjoy the influence of all these elements and to profit by them. We see these artists of high rank, each according to his character, striving to portray scenes from Christ's life, or Christ himself, not primarily in the service of the Church or the priesthood, nor even to foster the piety of the com- mon people, but to furnish creations such as sat- isfied their own consciences. The perseverance of the artists through the entire Quattrocento in their attempts to produce a convincing picture of Christ, bears a certain resemblance to the efforts in our day to solve the problem from a literary and artistic standpoint. For the task is still before us. What Luther never dreamed of to establish an historic Christ this is again and again attempted by the historians and theologians of the present day. We realize anew with every picture and book the impos- sibility of success, and yet are constantly impelled to fresh attempts. 60 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Our standpoint to-day is this. Only the indi- vidual is comprehensible, only what comes before us in a tangible form, only what can be measured by our measure and understood by our understanding. The Christ of the Gospel seems to us mythical, frag- mentary, not a creation of flesh and blood. The events of his life lack what we call solid basis ; he seems rather to float than to walk. We would fain know how he passed his days, how his words sounded, what his thoughts were about common things, how and what was his career from child- hood up, in the sense of documentary evidence. We are not disposed to look upon such representations as Munkacsy has recently given as wholly incredible; but even these cannot move us. Our eyes are not educated for them. We should place less value to- day even on photographs of those events than on the possession of legitimate evidence out of the mouths of contemporaries. In the Quattrocento the founder of Florentine Art, who owed his power to his faithfulness to nature, had hesitated to bring the Christ within the sphere of his new style of repre- sentations. The Christ of Giotto preserves some- thing of that fixed impersonal type of former centu- ries. His gestures differ from those of all around him. They are measured and majestic, as becomes the " King of men." His raiment seems to fall into simpler folds. He retains somewhat the character of a mere apparition. We see from Dante how the mediaeval conception of the Saviour, which, even in THE ENTOMBMENT. 61 pictorial representation, did not distinguish him from God the Father, continued to prevail in the Trecento. Giotto had to conform to this, and when delineating the incidents of Christ's career, felt obliged to preserve the sublimity, repose, and sover- eignty of his aspect, even when depicting him in the circle of every-day life. Contrasted with this, Ghiberti's conception was indeed a new creation. He makes Christ, as prin- cipal character in the sacred tragedy, move and act in harmony with the same poetic laws to which the other participants in the scene are subjected. Tall, vigorous, and powerful, Christ is no longer a mere presence, as we might say of him in the earlier pictures, of whom no one knows whence he came, or whither he goes, but he comes forward, takes part, labors, suffers and endures, proving himself in every utterance and expression the highest represen- tative of humanity, and emphatically as belonging to it. Soon, however, this no longer sufficed ; the boun- dary had been overleapt ; Christ should have in- dividuality, and the artists of the Quattrocento responded to this wish in innumerable pictures. We are amazed at the variety of features and f orms ; but in no one of these works do we. find the image we desire. Donatello, as before said, exhibited the prevailing conception for the latter decades of the century in which Leonardo, Michael Angelo, and Raphael arose; he satisfied the average demand. 62 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. He strove to create a Christ stamped with the genuineness of the poor but honest man. The poetic, mythic Christ of Ghiberti was no longer desired. Thus the century flowed on ! Even Leon- ardo had given no image of Christ* when, in the transition to the Cinquecento, Michael Angelo chis- elled his Pieta. From Ghiberti to Donatello he had appropriated everything, adding to all his own genius. And now it was Raphael's good fortune to have Michael Angelo's Christ before his eyes as he painted the Entombment ; for this work we see the first act in the subjection of Raphael to Michael Angelo. The Entombment, through Amsler's excel- lent engraving, has become almost a German work. The picture itself is in a sadly ruinous condition. Large photographs enable us to see that it bears the marks of other hands than Raphael's. This in truth is the reason why friends of Art here and there doubted the whole execution of the work be- ing Raphael's, others have attempted to show where his scholars used the brush. Rumohr recognizes Ridolfo Ghirlandajo's and Garafolo's hand in the painting, and Unger distinguishes places where one of the two laid in the ground color and Raphael has only gone over it with ultramarine f But to this we must reply that Raphael was already in Rome where Gara- folo first came to him and that Ridolfo Ghirlandajo never worked in Perugia. Hence if Unger and * The head of the Saviour in the Lord's Supper is not visible, t lingers Forschungen (Researches), 115-77. THE ENTOMBMENT. 63 Runiohr are right the Entombment could not have been painted there. If it was painted in Florence, however, Garafolo at least could not have worked upon it. This kind of investigation is to be sus- pected so soon as the aim is anything more than to prove in a general way that a master had help in the painting of this picture. Why this should have been the case with the Entombment any further than perhaps the laying in of the ground tone, I do not know. The painting is severe, in some places almost harsh. The drawing predominates, we feel the importance the master lays upon the lines. But Raphael so often suited his manner to his subject and so thoroughly understood where it was ex- pedient to be more of a colorist and where more of a draftsman, that here too he must have known exactly which he wished to emphasize. The first thing which attracts our gaze in the pic- ture is the head of Christ, slightly inclined toward the shoulder, and the long, drooping bare arm. No inanimate corpse is here, it is a sleeper that is being borne forward. The body is not rigidly stretched out and dragged along, as in Signorelli's picture, but, in this respect, like Michael Angelo's Pieta lies, with sunken lap, upon the grave-cloth in which they bear it, while the legs hang down over it unsupported. Two bearers share the burden be- tween them. At the feet, a powerful youth striding forward holds the hem of the bier cloth with vigor- ous arm ; at the head a full-bearded man is feeling 64 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. with one foot for the steps, which lead behind him up to the tomb, while, with shoulders thrown back, he sustains the upper part of the body ; close to him, behind the corpse, another manly form is as- sisting him, and likewise ascending the steps, but forward. Between them John is seen, his hands clasped under his chin, gazing upon the body. Be- tween the last three and the bearer at the feet, a female figure walks, sobbing, beside the corpse ; she holds the left hand of Christ in hers, while, with her right she raises one of his long locks. This en- tire group (all the figures considered as a unit) is not exactly in the middle, but drawn so far to the left that between it and the edge of the painting to the right, there is a space in which we see the faint- ing mother, her eyes closed, supported by her at- tendants. A landscape, with its tender details, fills the distant back-ground ; whilst to the left the rocks rise darkly, into whose cavernous side the way now leads. Inscribed upon it : " Raphael Urbinos Pin- cit, MDVII. " (Close behind the date there is a crack in the tablet, which has led some erroneously to read the date MDVIII.) In the twelfth century we begin to find repre- sentations of Christ being taken from the cross, wept over, carried to the grave, or laid in the tomb. To hunt up all the various conceptions, which may have lingered in Raphael's or Michael Angelo's memory, and which exercised more or less influence THE ENTOMBMENT. 65 over their creations, would be impossible. Every- where pictures of this sort stood before the eyes alike of artist and public. We have just spoken of the distinction between representations of sacred occurrences in the legend- ary and in the historical manner ; there is yet a third ; the symbolic, or mystic representation. Here the occurrence, divorced from all earthly acci- dents, is transferred to a higher world which opens before the vision of ecstatic piety. Appearances and actions here unite in compositions, which, while only suggestive of the real event, comprise its full meaning, without giving tangible representa- tions of it. The Entombment of Christ is rendered historically where persons named in the Gospels bear the body to the tomb just as the words of the narrative present the scene to our imagination. It is treated in a legendary sense when a crowd of people, who, according to the legend, may be as- sumed to have been present, are brought into the picture, to represent a large and imposing funeral procession. The event is pictured in a mystic sense when perhaps not one of these figures is given (neither the multitude nor the individuals mentioned in the Gospel narrative), but the body is laid by angelic beings into a sarcophagus. Indeed Christ may here be represented quite alone, sitting upon the edge of the open sarcophagus and this scene again so far expanded as to include a host of adoring saints crowding around him. And yet again even 66 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. these may be so realistically given that this mere dream of an event may contain at the same time many features of striking reality. The artists felt themselves under no restraint in carrying out any special wish of their patron, because the public understood exactly how to interpret these things. A pen and ink drawing, ascribed to Raphael, passes for the first sketch of his Entombment. Christ, taken from the cross, lies on the lap of the fainting mother, surrounded by those who rightfully appear as the immediate mourners. Here then the legendary conception is the ruling one. A later design of Raphael's, engraved by Marcantonio, shows the Saviour taken down from the cross, stretched out at full length, and Mary standing all alone behind him in one of those positions expressive at once of deep grief, resignation, and prayer ; here the scene is symbolically conceived. Another small picture of the Entombment in the Berlin Museum, formerly ascribed to Raphael, is also symbolic : Christ sitting on the edge of the sarcophagus. But as the Entombment in the Palazzo Borghese gives the occurrence it is historic. Any one, even if ignorant of what was here taking place, from a mere human point of view, would be thrilled by the scene before him. Raphael has already aimed at this manner of conceiving his subject in the Spos- alizio, but could not free himself from the legend. How much nearer he comes in this picture to his aim ! To be sure the subject is more favorable, for the marriage of the Virgin is in itself a legend. THE ENTOMBMENT. 67 I no longer consider the pen and ink drawing just mentioned as Raphael's work ; we must there- fore proceed to give the history of the Entombment without taking this as our starting point. Burial scenes have been depicted from the very birth of art, and the arrangement of the figures is so natural and necessary that it does not astonish us to find the same grouping on the most ancient monuments as well as on the most recent. We meet with it on Greek vases and on Pagan and Christian sarcophagi, but neither the Entombment nor the Pas- sion were ever made subjects of art among the early Christians. It would seem that Raphael was familiar with one of these ancient representations. As early as the Quattrocento the sarcophagus was famous, which stands to-day in the Doria palace ; its sculp- tured reliefs exhibit the dead Meleager borne along, and the fainting mother reminds us especially of Raphael's Mary. Even at an earlier period this figure had been repeated by Masaccio in a wall- picture of San Clemente's in Rome. Whether Raphael was familiar with one or other of these representations, or both, through originals or copies, when he worked on his Entombment it is impossible to say. The question what models Raphael may have had in his imagination seems to me important only with regard to three works : the Pieta of Michael Angelo, the engraving by Mantegna (a copy of which in pen and ink by Raphael is preserved) and the wall- painting of Signorelli in the chapel of the cathedral 68 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. at Orvieto where this artist painted the Last Judg- ment besides an abundance of decorative work in which was included an Entombment. Michael Angelo's Pieta, of which Raphael may have seen a cast in Florence, if he had not seen the work itself in Rome, has been already mentioned. Mantegna's engraving pictures the event in the forcible manner of Donatello, by whom likewise various Entombments exist. In Mantegna's en- graving Christ is being carried to the sarcophagus in a linen cloth, which is held at the sides and ends by those who bear him. He lies in the calm repose of an old man whose pain-distorted features have at last yielded to the stillness of death. Out of this last sleep he will never be awakened to fresh tor- tures. Raphael's conception shows an affinity with this beautiful composition of Mantegna's, but a distant one, as if Raphael had only a faint remem- brance of the engraving. More important is Sig- norelli's work, one of those symbolic pictures that bear the stamp of reality. Christ lies stretched out, his head pillowed on his mother's lap. Another woman is crouching behind him on the ground who has taken his hand in hers and is covering it with kisses. Quite close to these and forming the back- ground of the scene a sarcophagus, placed broad- side, is visible, or rather some marble architecture, representing the broadside of a sarcophagus, on which in bas-relief we see again the funeral pro- cession bearing Christ's body to the grave. THE ENTOMBMENT. 69 The body in horizontal position is seen in profile, three figures bearing it along, one sustaining it under the shoulders, another at the feet, while a third, standing in the middle behind the body, has his arm stretched out over it. This representation corresponds in part to a pen and ink drawing of Raphael's bearing the strange name of the Death of Adonis, which though known only by a few copies (and these now ranked as spurious) must either lie hidden in some unknown corner or be wholly lost. According to my present opinion this is the first of Raphael's sketches now remaining for what later appeared in the painting in such a wholly different form, and the first actual proof for Vasari's asser- tion that the Entombment was painted in Perugia, but that the cartoon originated in Florence. In publishing his first edition Vasari knew nothing of the kind, whence he derived this knowledge for his second edition we have no idea. But agree with him we must. Only by the farther tracing out of these begin- nings shall we be enabled to follow the first great change in Raphael's artistic development. I have elsewhere asserted that in the first con- ception of their works the masters of the Quattro- cento did not begin with studies from the nude human form. They indeed knew how to represent the nude figure, but did not perceive the whole movement of the man, as shown in the forms of the body beneath the garments, like the masters of the 70 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Cinquecento or the ancient artists. The imagina- tion of the Quattrocento masters worked with what was visible around them. Michael Angelo was the first who, through the antique and his anatomical studies, was led to a higher treatment of the hu- man body. His cartoon of the Soldiers Bathing showed to the astonished Florentines that our bodies contain an architecture, without a knowl- edge of which any representation of human move- ments is imperfect. A composition, although of draped figures, could make no claim to the high- est rank, as a work of art, if this architecture was not transparent through the drapery. The inward eye of the artist had to be trained in a new school to achieve so much. Those in whom this discipline was wanting fell to the rear, as out of date. And here we have one of the reasons why Michael Angelo put an end to Perugino's fame, who had neither the wish nor the ability to rise to this height. This is why Michael Angelo' s cartoon produced a revolution in art, and why it was preferred to Leonardo's Cavalry Encounter although Michael Angelo's picture of Soldiers Bathing is almost without interest. The action has no central point. Naked soldiers, just out of the water, scrambling into their clothes and armor upon the shore. No attack, no fight, no expectation of it, not so much as an enemy in sight. Only a hasty movement, which lacks any visible aim. What a contrast in every respect is Leonardo's Cavalry Encounter, THE EXTOMBiJENT. 71 where all is set forth and the wildest battle fury portrayed. In the spirit of Florentine Art, as hitherto known, Leonardo had produced the greatest work ; but Michael Angelo's nude figures taught men that in another direction a greater might be achieved. Already, in the Death of Adonis, Kaphael's first, sketch for the Entombment, Michael Angelo's influence is perceptible. Before seeing photo- graphs of all the drawings Raphael made for this picture, my opinion had been that Fra Barto- lonimeo, or Signorelli, could have wrought a like change in him. In fact, drawings from the nude, by these artists, are preserved, whose influence over- Raphael can be proved, as we shall see ; but Michael Angelo was the first to group nude figures together,, so that the action of one leads to that of the others,. and the many bodies form a whole, moving by on& consent. Now this is just the peculiar characteristic; of Raphael's first sketch for the Entombment.. The nude bearers of the nude corpse unite to form a living w r hole, more indeed after the manner of a bas-relief, than of a round group which is intended to be seen from all sides. And from this time on we find Raphael executing all his works after this manner. Two conceptions of his figures, from this> time, ever seemed to run side by side in his fantasy, the one fully draped, the other nude. He now,, also, begins the successive working over of his com- positions ; leaving out and adding figures ; revers- 72 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. ing the whole construction and arrangement ; end- ing with a return to some of the original elements. The Entombment passed through three phases : from the first conception (Death of Adonis) Raph- ael soared to a new one for which valuable studies are extant. The arrangement of the procession had been hitherto that the body was borne along feet fore- most, and that the person who held these together took the lead ; whilst he, who, with his hands under the shoulders, supported the head, followed. Raphael in making a new design for the picture reversed the trend of the procession. Now the one who lifts the body at the head takes the lead. Mov- ing backward he gropes with his heels for the steps leading up to the tomb, which is now transferred to this side. Moreover, the body is no longer touched by the bearers, but lies in a linen cloth which is held up at the head by two figures in place of one ; whilst he who raises the feet no longer puts his arms around the legs, but holds the corners of the tier cloth, over which they project from the knee downward. For this conception of the composition we have a pen and ink drawing, now at Oxford, one of those undoubted authorities which prove so many others to be counterfeit. It shows at the same time how deeply Raphael had entered into the spirit of Michael Angelo's cartoon. Again we see the firm, even course of the lines, although differently crossed, THE ENTOMBMENT. 73 which distinguish the silver-point drawings for the Coronation of Mary, mentioned in the first chapter. But once more Raphael makes a change in the composition. The three bearers of the body, as presented in the Oxford drawing, form, with Christ, a compact group. The body, by the fore-shortening almost doubled up, takes but little room and serves only as a connecting link. Its outlines have been drawn with light strokes ; the bearers, in their different attitudes, were this time the paramount interest. Possibly Raphael afterward perceived that he had injured the effect of his picture by thus destroying the prominence of the figure of Christ. In the Florentine design we see how he remedies this. The body is once more stretched out, and the bearers are separated into two distinct groups. The attitude of each individual has been retained ; but while the first difficulty was how to concentrate their strength, in order to bear the body along by united effort, the question in this design is how to hold the cloth sufficiently taut to have the body lie upon it straight and not sink together. The increased exertion thus demanded made it necessary to empha- size the severe strain upon the bearers, and afforded the artist the glorious task of unfolding the contrast, in different ways, of the living power in the figures to the heavy death-sleep of Christ. Raphael now devoted himself to developing this contrast, and the 74 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. difference between the Florentine drawing, of which I have spoken, and the finished picture shows with what consummate art he finally succeeded in enhanc- ing it. For awhile the Florentine design seems to have "been the form in which Raphael wished to execute the picture. The squares upon it may have been drawn to facilitate the reproduction from the sketch of the larger cartoon after which the painting itself was then to be executed.* The Florentine drawing seems so entirely to contain the real painting that Uumohr in his day might well declare it to have l>een a " painfully exact preparation " for it. But what important changes it had yet to undergo ! In studying the history of the origin of Raphael's pictures through the preparatory drawings the mar- vel always is that on arriving at the final execution lie seems to set himself free from them once more and as in the beginning clearly to face the main thought to the embodiment of which his art is directed. He sets aside all the preparatory studies to build up the composition afresh. As things now present them- selves to his inward eye they are immortalized in color. * But they may have been drawn by another hand for the simple purpose 01 copying the drawing. And in tin; same way the squares on a drawing for the Libreria in Siena may be explained. Only why make the lines so hard in the precious sheet if they were simply wanted to copy the sketch? I formerly believed the draw- Ing it salt' only ;i .copy. lnt :MM '"> Ion-rev of this opinion. THE ENTOMBMENT. 75 Raphael's last changes in the Entombment are significant enough. The group bearing the body no longer occupies exactly the centre of the painting. At the left where the rocks arise, into whose cav- ernous depth the body is to be taken, the procession reaches to the edge of the painting ; to the right however between the last bearer and the edge of the tablet, room is left for a sight of the fainting mother. The steps which, at the entrance, lead into the cavern are steeper now than in the Florentine sketch in order to increase the strain upon the two bearers at the head. The one especially who is groping after each step with his heels as he moves backward, now seems to bear the larger share of the burden. Physical and mental strain are mingled in the face which is thrown backward. Between him and the second bearer of the head John's face appears now for the first time typified as such who would take one last despairing look at the dead Saviour. This second bearer at the head, in the sketch beard- less and unimportant, is here with full hair and beard placed in contrast to the somewhat feminine appearance of John. The woman who holds up the hand of Christ in hers, is now alone in her place, and the one visible beside her in the Florentine sketch effaced as unnecessary to the action, (In the first sketch, the Death of Adonis, it was a man.) By this means more room is won for the single bearer at the feet of Christ ; an elderly man with long beard in the Florentine sketch he appears in 76 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. the painting a beardless youth. This figure is, next to that of Christ, the one which attracts the most attention and impresses itself most deeply on the memory ; the strong man in the sketch bearing up firmly under the burden, but like the rest looking strained to the utmost, appears twenty years younger. The exertion is mere play to this youth. He could have taken the body in his arms all alone and carried it to the grave like a sleeping child.* This contrast of the superabundance of youthful strength to the almost painful effort manifested in various ways by the others is one of the beauties latent in Raphael's works which fills the spectator with a sense of harmony without his being at once conscious of its origin. Between this youth and the right border of the picture, Mary appears with her women a triumph of artistic grouping. (This group is wholly wanting in the Florentine sketch.) Thus we see Raphael sparing no pains to create a work which he could allow himself in the end to pronounce perfect. At first nothing is really his own. From all sides he takes what he finds adapted to his aim. Antique bas-reliefs, an engraving by Mantegna, a painting by Signorelli, a marble by Michael Angelo, all these work most powerfully on his imagination. He imitates unhesitatingly. The *In the Tapestries this figure re-appears in the Conversion of Paul, but in a different attitude. THE ENTOMBMENT. 77 Death of Adonis reminds us of Signorelli's bas- relief in Orvieto, the fainting mother of the sar- cophagus in the Doria Palace, the figure of Christ of Michael Angelo's Pieta. But when has he taken anything without first transforming it by his own genius into what he needs ! We feel as if we were gazing at one of Nature's own creations when the painting in the Borghese is before our eyes, a thing finished from the beginning, where every line is in- dispensable and significant. It all seems to us as if it had flown into his imagination and he had only to seize it. Yet on the contrary, so much labor and groping, such vacillation, so much indecision are found to be preparatory steps to the final completion. So much perplexity and confusion at first ! All these figures which seem to have forced themselves, at the outset, clearly upon his notice were patiently and slowly wrought to perfection. Raphael's Entomb- ment is a master-piece but one gradually brought forth. It is the work of a young man. Raphael was twenty-three years of age when he began it, but it only strikes us as youthful when compared with his later works. By these certainly it was excelled, but we must remember that none of these great works were then in existence if we would give the Entomb- ment the rank to which it is entitled. Let us transport ourselves to the standpoint of the Tuscan public in 1507. Leonardo had produced nothing after the manner of the Entombment. Michael Angelo's Madonna Doui and whatever else 78 THE LIFE OF liAPHAEL. he had created, as painter hitherto, was of a sec- ondary nature. The Sistine Chapel was not undertaken until 1508. Mantegna, Perugino, Sig- norelli, Botticelli, Filippino and Francia were the masters with whom Raphael came into comparison at this time ; neither in painting nor in depth of thought could any of them compete with him. Let us now compare Mantegna's Entombment as a composition, with Raphael's. In one only of the subordinate figures does the artist indulge in the representation of a grief bordering on frenzy which Donatello makes his figures exhibit in several of his Entombments. Mantegna's conception is more sub- dued. The lifeless body of Christ with deeply imprinted traces of pain in the face is being half carried, half dragged to the sarcophagus in which it is to rest. The one of the bearers who clutches the two corners of the bier-cloth at the head and holds them high with arms bent upward at the elbows, that the burden may not sink to the ground in the middle, unites the expression of great physical energy with suppressed grief. The other holding the feet, on whom the lesser strain falls, can give way to his grief more freely. He has turned his face aside. Between the two the mother, in an out- burst of sorrow, has thrown herself across the body and is clasping it in her arms ; behind her (and as it were to indicate a certain composure in the three first described figures) appears the other Mary dis- solved in grief, her arms flung wildly into the air ; THE ENTOMBMENT. 79 and between them the corpse, the upper arms close to the sides, the hands crossed over the body : the image of a man tortured to death, from whose body has fled, with the soul, all that had given it spiritual elasticity and strength. It would almost seem as if pictorial art, as interpreter of the Gospels, had here achieved its uttermost. More, at all events, than Michael Angelo, in an Entombment ascribed to him, now in England, but dilapidated so as to be almost unrecognizable ; an early work which, by the side of the Pieta or Raphael's Entombment, is not to be considered. How totally different Raphael's conception of the scene, and certainly not less in the spirit of the Evangelists. The loud wailing is hushed, and the prostrate mother transferred to the back-ground. Removed from the body of her son, she had sunk down while the procession was passing, and they were forced to leave her behind. She is the image of Death, as compared with Christ, who, filled with Eternal Life, lies slumbering there. The second Mary, close beside the body, would seem only to have joined the procession because she would not allow the hand of Christ to drop, which it was her office to sustain ; she wishes to cast a last look at him before turning back to the fainting mother. The bearers of the body move along, conscious of carrying a noble burthen. And Christ, himself, beauty, serenity and mercy dwell in him in fullest 80 THE LIFE OF EAPHAEL. measure, as if his spirit still both informed his body and glorified it. Only Raphael could undertake to paint this. No one before or after him could so simply and naturally picture the earthly form, irra- diated with heavenly light. Michael Angelo's Pieta had preceded it ; without it Raphael's painting would never have been created and yet in one respect Michael Angelo's work is surpassed by Raphael's. From time to time among the individuals of which nations are composed Nature causes mighty spirits to arise who stand out conspicuously among millions. If such men are artists original produc- tions of an extraordinary kind are the result. These works have one distinguishing feature which raises them far above the creations of artists better suited to the average intellect of their nation, and sets them apart, like the authors themselves ; they all have the character of the phenomenal whose depth of meaning the masses cannot fathom. Hence they awaken awe rather than thorough comprehen- sion, reverence rather than love. Precisely here Raphael differs, and in differing surpasses all other great artists. He creates like Nature herself. A rose is a rose, and it is nothing more ; the song of the nightingale is the nightingale's song, there are no further mysteries to fathom. Thus Raphael's works are free from personal accessories ; it is only by a peculiar glamour over everything by his hand THE ENTOMBMENT. 81 that we are led to exclaim, "Raphael painted this ! " We never enjoy a wort of Michael Angelo with the same immunity. A low voice seems to whisper out of each one of them, " I am the work of Michael Angelo, and only through his character can the way be found to any correct interpretation ! " This breathes also from Dante's verses. No one will be insensible to this still reminder of the person of the master, Michael Angelo, who looks upon the dead Christ in the lap of his mother, his first great Roman work. Not Christ and his mother alone, but Michael Angelo also is represented, and his spirit speaks from out this marble. And again, not his spirit as universal plastic force, but that of the individual man, who busied with his own sorrow-laden thoughts slowly chiselled from the marble this image of the deepest grief. In Raphael's pictures the thrilling incidents he represents are weighted with no such personal ele- ments, but as it were, rather relieved by the absence of it. He does not seem to have been one of those men who tower above the average of their nation, but on the contrary he stands before us as the very per- sonification of this average.* He keeps the measure by which the great multitude is to be measured ; he is in affinity with all, is every man's friend and brother ; no one feels himself humbled beside him; there * In other of my writings I. have in a different way arrived at the like deductions. 82 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. lingers no trace of an unexplained and unen joyed mystery. In this respect perhaps Diirer would have equalled him if in his forms he could wholly have risen above the German Quattrocento ; only in his last works, however, did he succeed in doing this. Diirer drew several pictures of the Entombment, the way to the tomb as well as the laying of the body in the sepulchre. The simplest is the one in the series of the so-called "Kleine Passion" (wood-cut), and here we find a striking difference if we compare Diirer's conception with Raphael's. As early as in the Sposalizio we detect Raph- ael's natural preference for depicting young men, and in the Entombment likewise this shows itself ; all the characters, Mary excepted, are young. In Diirer's representations on the contrary the old predominate ; his figures of Christ are the type of a man in advanced years. This is noticeable in all his productions, but the finest example is his Crucifix of 1523 (1521) the drawing for which was first pub- lished by Ephrussi (*). The experiences of along life seem incarnated in this head and figure ; in the same way Diirer conceives the Entombment, and here he is in harmony with Mantegna. We see elderly men laying one who in life had been like themselves, into the grave. Elderly men were the predominating class in German cities at that time, they decided everything, and therefore * Ephrussi A. Durer et ses Desseins Page 321. THE ENTOMBMENT. 83 Diirer makes them conspicuous wherever he repre- sents the populace. But with Raphael the young predominate. Even in the Disputa and School of Athens, where the aged must have the precedence, he has mingled so many youthful figures in the composition that they seem to form the principal element. The sight of the young has in it something emancipating and re- freshing. In the lecture room when the eyes of the young are directed toward me, my best thoughts come as if they enticed them forth. Raphael must have felt that to make his pictures rightly effective it was necessary to infuse this element as largely as possible. Let us return for a moment to the Sposalizio. In its outward aspect the life of to-day offers very little (to our eyes ) which can impress itself upon the genius of the artist as material for his art. Portraits and statues are magnificent tasks, but will never stir to its depths the creative power of painter or sculptor. What, then, shall he represent? What work will afford him the delightful consciousness of having created an indispensable element in the life and labors of his time ? Even a man of rich and fertile imagination will sometimes enquire to-day, what indeed ? But with what clearness did the two centuries in which Raphael lived prescribe to the artist their work ! A narrow range of subjects was apparently offered; everlasting repetitions of Madonnas, of 84 THE LIFE OF KAPHAEL. events in sacred history, and only by degrees, added to these, illustrations of antique myths which, however, were chiefly used for ornamental purposes. Yet how completely these subjects enlisted the creative power of the artists ! The Marriage of Mary, the Entombment of Christ ! An artist who must picture either of these events could put into his work all the thought and feeling which finds place in the soul of man. He might make the greatest demand on his art and the public might require of him all that is most elevating, and to be thrilled to their innermost being. This is the reason why the epoch of art-history, in which, under such conditions, works of art arose, requires the most exhaustive study. One last comparison and I have done : What was the process of development through which Raphael's composition, by three successive stages, reached its final form? At first we see three men bearing a corpse ; one lifts the head, an- other the feet, while a third clasps it in the middle the most natural distribution of the burden. And what is the shape which Raphael finally de- cides upon? Only two here divide the labor: at the head a bearded man, at the feet a youth ; the corpse between them, like the body of one sleeping. All the other figures are superfluous additions, ex- cept the woman who is holding up the hand of Christ. She cannot be left out, but ever remains a subordinate figure. We have pointed to the dis- THE ENTOMBMENT. 85 tinction of young and old, in the bearers, as a last nuance of Raphael's artistic tact. And now it turns out that this last individual touch, is nothing save a return to the noblest for- mula for Entombments, which Greek art estab- lished two thousand years before Raphael, but which was to him unknown. Of Greek paintings we possess almost noth- ing. A variety of fragments, however, have come to light, which enable us to divine what the eyes of the Greek painters saw in nature, and how their hands reproduced it. The broken pieces of cine- rary urns, which the Athenians flung into the graves, upon the bodies of their dead, with the purpose of breaking them to bits, now sought for and put to- gether anew, afford delightful specimens of Greek painting. On such urns, to-day, in London and Berlin, we discover Entombments.* We find a body stretched out before us, a corpse, but at the same time as if one were sleeping. TWO figures bear it ; the man at the head, standing be- hind, grasps it under the shoulders. One arm of the dead man, whose head slightly inclines toward the shoulder, is hanging down the other hand and arm slightly raised ; plainly a person is here to be imagined holding it up. The second bearer is at the feet, sustaining the legs of the dead man. The * These figures are of importance for the Madonna, bearing the same date. 86 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. former is a winged youth ; the latter, also winged, a bearded man. They are interpreted as Death and Sleep. What Raphael, dimly groping, found un- aided and alone, had been by the Greeks long ago wrought out and accepted as their general formula. With what care Raphael executed his work is shown also in the predella, which consists of a series of little figures of great beauty, lightly painted in grisaille.* This is at present in the gallery of the Vatican, whilst the Entombment is in the Borghese palace. A copy has been substi- tuted for it in Perugia. The tablet above, attached to the picture and representing the Almighty, Pas- savant also ascribed to Raphael ; but it has been so positively denied to him by others, that Passavant seems to have made a mistake, f * Compare Stefano Amadei's article in F. Meyer's "Kflnstler Lexicon." t Compare Stefano Amadei's article in F. Meyer's "Kiiiistler Lexicon." THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. i. CHAPTER III. THE CAMERA DELLA SEGXATURA. THE moment came when Raphael's field of labor was transferred from Florence to Rome. Anything more definite it is impossible to say. The knowl- edge of when he first came to Rome, and what he saw or perhaps did there, could be derived only from special and direct statements such as we do not possess. Julius II. formed magnificent plans for the employment of architects, sculptors and painters, which he was impatient to have carried out. St. Peters and the Palace of the Vatican were to be rebuilt ; Rome was to receive fresh additions on the right bank of the Tiber, and everywhere, in old Rome, palaces and churches were to be erected. For this end there stood at the command of the Pope, two men admirably qualified for such under- takings in the realm of Art Giuliano da Sangallo and Bramante both masterly architects of long- established repute, and both retained in Rome, not- withstanding their bitter dislike of each other. * Compare Stefano Amadei's article in F. Meyer's "Ktinstler Lex- icon." 88 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Giuliano had brought Michael Angelo to Rome as his trump card; Bramante, Raphael. In neither case had it been an official call, which had led Michael Angelo or Raphael to leave Florence sud- denly, as a young Professor to-day leaves a smaller University for one of more importance, where he is henceforth to work and make himself at home. But these two young artists were simply invited to Rome and given work to do. What would come of it later was hardly spoken of at the outset. Vasari in his Life of Raphael does not even name the year ; he merely says, " upon Bramante's recommendation, Pope Julius summoned Raphael, and, on his ar- rival, received him with kindly words." Michael Angelo when summoned to Rome for the Sistine Chapel, had frequently beeh there in former years, and so Raphael may have been and gone. Certain it is, as Condivi relates, that when they wished to put the Sistine Chapel into Michael Angelo' s hands, he at first refused, and suggested Raphael. From this we must infer that the latter, at that time (the beginning of 1508), was well- known in Rome as a successful artist ; though what he had achieved we do not know. In this uncertain state of things I feel justified in hazarding the following conjecture : The first sketches for the Camera della Segnatura were made by Raphael before he finished The Entombment, which, as we have seen, was in the year 1507 ; I am of this opinion, regardless of the above-mentioned THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. 89 surmises, and the paltry collection of notes produced in their support, for the character of the drawings . compels me to believe it. These earlier sketches made for the frescoes in the Camera della Segnatura are in some portions very little like the paintings themselves. They differ in the figures and in the composition. But there exists no better material than these drawings for tracing Raphael's develop- ment. The Camera della Segnatura is in the Palace of the Vatican, which was not so large when Julius as- cended the papal throne as at his death. Alexander Borgia had before him occupied a suite of apart- ments, to which, at present, only a few favored per- sons obtain admission. It was not until last year that I was allowed to see them. Pinturicchio, court painter of the Borgias, adorned these rooms with frescoes, which, still fresh and well preserved, are to-day a splendid sight. They are the most beautiful things he ever produced. Compared with Perugino, in whose time and at whose side he lived and worked in Perugia, they show an originality which gives him, in my eyes, greater significance than all I had previously known of his work. No one in walk- ing through these apartments finds in the beautifid adornment of the walls any intimation of the char- acter of those who once occupied them, and on whose death they were deserted, perhaps forever. Julius II. shunned them as if the plague were there. He had a suite of apartments fitted up above, the 90 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. painting of which was already begun when Raphael appeared in Rome. Vasari enumerates the artists engaged upon them, Perugino and Sodoma being the most distinguished. At first, only a single room was assigned to Raphael, the vaulted ceiling of which had been undertaken by Sodoma. By a sub- sequent change the paintings of the other masters were obliterated, and the entire upper story in this part of the palace, consisting of three rooms and a hall, assigned to Raphael. The Camera della Segnatura forms the centre of this series of rooms. It is quadrangular, broad and large, yet, nevertheless, has the character of a private room. Two of its opposite walls have high windows, from which the many colored panes, painted by William of Marseilles, having long since disappeared. So, too, the wainscoting, with seats of rich inlaid work, which once covered the walls all around to the height of a man (the work of Barili) is no longer there. But the splendid mosaic floor- ing, an imitation of the antique, is preserved and bears the emblems of the Rovere. We are struck with the gay, courtly, aristocratic air which the Renaissance Masters in that age knew how to impart to their architecture. Whichever way we turn artistic creations of the highest perfec- tion meet our eye. Especially pleasing is the vaulted ceiling which droops so low at each corner, for this has not been spoiled, cleaned again and again, rubbed out and re-touched as is the case with the THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. 91 side walls, but the fresh jewel-sheen of the painting, on which no dust can fall, and which no destroying 1 hands can reach, remains to this day unimpaired. But even in looking at the side walls, the unpleasant feeling soon vanishes that we have before us only the last faint glimpses of what was once here ; through the ruined surface the inward beauty of the work penetrates, as it were, into our very souls filling us with sublime and refreshing images. This spiritual glow which makes itself gradually felt, is nowhere so effective as in the Disputa. As described above, the vaulted ceiling of the Camera della Segnatura stretches downward at the four cor- ners so that the side walls form above a complete semi-circle. The line upon which this semi-circle rests is therefore the breadth of the whole surface. Raphael conceived this in " the Disputa" as a plain in the centre of which, on a slight elevation, stands an altar approached by broad, easy steps. Assembled about it, and disposed on either side toward the foreground, we see a goodly congrega- tion the most illustrious personages being nearest the altar, seated upon handsome stone benches of antique form, the others reverentially crowding around them. A thick cloud hangs low over this assembly, bisecting the painting horizontally, above which a second assembly, of heavenly beings, is visi- ble. These are also grouped about a centre, the Holy Trinity, at whose feet, and directly over the altar, upon which stands the Monstrance, genii are 92 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. flying with hands raised above their heads, bear- ing the open Gospels. This picture of the supernal world, though complete in itself, is, at the same time, closely connected with that of the earthly as- semblage below, and together they form a whole. Around the altar below, all is in motion. Evidently, however, only those close to it can see the glory re- vealing itself above, but not even all of these are looking upward ; some are still engrossed in talking or reading ; others, 011 the other hand, touched by the spiritual light, which streams down from above, have flung their books upon the ground. The most distinguished Christian Fathers are made known by the titles of their books, or by the names inscribed on their halos ; other individuals, like Dante, are recognized by their faces, while still others have only conjectural names. But the figures in the upper world are all well known. In the middle, Christ, who has his full face turned toward us, both hands raised, at whose side to the right and left sit Mary and John. Elevated above all is God, The Father, with the globe in his left hand, while the right is raised to bless and to command. Angels floating in the ether, with outspread wings, surround Him. The heaven seems to consist of angels heads. He towers up like a huge mountain peak, whose illu- mined height no eye can measure. Far below to the right and left of Christ the semi-circle of cloud- border opens before us, and upon it we see saints from the Old and New Testaments, ranged side by side. THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. 93 This is what the first general glance reveals. Upon more careful consideration the scene falls 1 into sections. One thing after another now fills us with astonishment. For instance, the distant hori- zon of the landscape, visible behind the altar, seems to stretch back into the infinite. Beneath the cloud forming the base of the heavenly world, our eye loses itself in a bright, far-off perspective. Then we are touched with the dignity of the earthly as- semblage ; we feel that the vision of The Trinity has suddenly put an end to all study and debate, all parade of learning or consultation of books, but, at the same time, that this startling effect has thrilled only some few close to the altar, from whom it is gradually being communicated to the others. This state of transmission is portrayed in various ways. With quite another kind of admiration we regard the semi-circle of heavenly inhabitants who, seated upon the cloud, are gathered around Christ, with Mary and John. While these three are represented as transfigured, and of sublime mien, the saints about them have an almost worldly air. Peter, Paul, Adam, Moses, David, and others of equally high rank, are comfortably seated, much like Cardi- nals at high ecclesiastical fetes. Some among them with an elegance of movement, which does not harm- onize well with the great world-stirring thoughts associated with them. Observe with what aristo- cratic ease Adam has thrown one leg over the other ? as any one might who wished to make his position 94 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. still more easy and comfortable. Passavant explains that Adam is sitting there in the posture of expecta- tion and hope of Divine assistance and grace. This we do not wish to doubt, but, at all events, he is the picture of a man contented and well-to-do. Peter and Paul, however, who close the group to the right and left, look straight before them with grave, solemn eyes. What then is here represented ? Raphael tells us himself. Upon the vaulted roof above the painting, we see within a circle, which forms part of the series of its decoration, a female figure of great beauty. Sitting rapt in deep emotion she seems astonished at what is taking place below. A veil, in waving folds, falls from her olive crowned head. She is a sister, we imagine, of the Madonnas Raphael was at that time engaged in painting. An inscription reads " Divinarum Rerum Notitia," " The Knowl- edge of Things Divine." According to Vasari, the institution of the Mass is here represented ; the establishing of that which forms the main feature of Roman Catholic worship. On the other hand the inscription on Ghisi's engra- ving, which appeared in the same year as Vasari's book, reads, " Adoration of the Trinity." It is very much the same idea expressed in different ways. Beside this general meaning, the painting has a second one, which is indeed, only a conjecture of recent date, viz., bringing the picture into special connection with the history of Julius II. THE CAMERA BELLA SEGNATURA. 95 In the foreground below, at the right, we see a massive piece of unfinished architecture, directly inf the midst of the Assembly, or, as it were, rising out of it, which demands explanation. We recognize it as the base of one of the pillars which, according to Bramante's plan, were to support the dome of the new St. Peter's, and the allusion to the structure is made more clear by the introduction into the land- scape, behind the altar, of a church with men upon a scaffolding at work upon it. It is a fact that the tearing down of the old St. Peter's, long ago rendered necessary by the settling of the columns, had just begun. Despite the oppo- sition of many of the Cardinals, this conclusion had been arrived at, and communicated to the European Powers. For this new church, which, according to the ideas of the Pope, was to surpass everything known to recent centuries, Bramante now made various designs, and in the Disputa the heavens are represented as opening to bless and sanction the work. Therefore we see leaning against this piece of masonry (recognizable by the inscription of his halo) the Pope Anacletus II., the original builder of St. Peter's, while in front, with raised hands and upturned face, stands Pope Sixtus IV., in full pon- tificals, as the one with whom the greatness of the Rovere began, and to whom Julius II. especially owed everything. This interpretation of the painting, which I of- fered for the first time as an uncertain conjecture 96 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. some years ago, is to-day generally accepted. At the same time, however, it must be said that the in- tention thus to glorify the greatest undertaking of the Pope, seems to have been formed only during the gradual progress of the painting, since nothing of the kind is perceptible in the first designs. Of these designs we possess a good portion, and as in the case of the Entombment, are enabled to follow the gradual improvement in the work which also shows Raphael's growth in creative power. Three stages are clearly distinguishable in this work, corresponding in their several characteristics to the special conditions under which the other paintings in the Camera della Segnatura were com- pleted. The earliest sketch in India ink has almost nothing in common with the finished painting. For while the latter proves Raphael a master in the full possession of the technique of perspective, extending the space at his disposal with boundless distance, we see him in this first sketch embarrassed before his task of covering the wall. He does not know what to do with this great semi-circular surface. His only concern is to fill it up some way or other. He tries to make it smaller. At the right and left he takes up part of the space with a pleasing, but quite meaningless array of columns, and an archi- trave, upon which little Cupids are seated, fastening up coats of arms with daintily fluttering ribbons. The open space between them in the middle he shuts in at the back by a balustrade running all the way THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. 97 across ; and upon the veranda thus formed and en- closed by the columns, to the right and left sit a number of men, in two rows opposite each other, reading, writing, or talking two and two. Others joining these from both sides manifest great curiosity to see or hear what is being written down or spoken, and communicate to one another in ges- tures all they are able to make out. Some of the first named are looking up to heaven as if they saw the phenomenon in the height upon the cloud. No altar, no steps leading up to it ; no ar- ranging of figures into animated groups, only a few single personages in the foreground, roughly filling out the centre. The heaven, peopled with Saints, and visible above this scene, is also without construction. The effort to cover the wall with figures, as a mere flat surface, is here even more evident, and such a lack of skill is shown that one would think Raphael must have made this sketch before he had seen Florence. Some disconnected floating clouds, symmetrically disposed, form at once seats and footstools for a few holy personages. Christ, with Mary and John, oc- cupying the centre of the picture. No one of these seems designed with reference to any other, and all are in very stiff postures. The drawing in many re- spects reminds us of Perugino, and of Raphael's earliest fresco in the convent of San Severo at Peru- gia, where again the surface of the wall was evi- dently so large as to perplex him. 98 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Only iii the second sketch do we find Raphael lending to his composition the first traces of the form which the painting now exhibits. Yet, here also, he has drawn only the left half of the picture, since according to the traditional practice of making the composition symmetrical, this was sufficient to show the Pope what was designed. Here we no longer see the columns filling up the sides, although the assemblage is grouped in such a manner we are still obliged in imagination to assume the architec- ture. The heaven shows the first attempts at per- spective in the grouping together of its inhabitants. The altar in the middle below is visible, but it has the form of an antique sarcophagus ; the seat also which surrounds it in a semi-circle is in its place. In the assemblage about the altar, we meet with none of the figures in the first sketch, and only two motives have been retained. The figure of a man sitting with strained arms, holding a book on his knee, out of which he is reading, and the man with reverential curiosity creeping toward him, from whom he is separated by intervening figures. Another sitting figure, which in the first sketch was seen in heaven on one of the clouds, has now been introduced below, at the side of the altar. It was, perhaps, Raphael's intention to carry out the composition ac- cording to this sketch. In the valuable pen and ink drawing at Frankfort, we find the entire group com- posed of nude figures, in the treatment of which he shows complete mastery of his art. In regard to THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. 99 determining the date of its origin, there is no trace yet of that incentive to reproduce nature with blunt severity, and the manly form as trained to noble ex- ercise, which the sight of Michael Angelo's cartoon awakened in Raphael, while at work on his Entomb- ment ; but conception, as well as technical handling, show a certain leaning toward the manner of Fra Bartolommeo, an influence independent of Michael Angelo, and one that still continued for sometime to run parallel with it. But Raphael did not rest contented here. A sketch in the Vienna collection, which apparently presents nothing more than the same Frankfort group, though no longer nude, on closer inspection shows a great change in the composition. Especially striking is the appearance for the first time of a man with his back toward us in the fore- ground at the left of the altar, on the last step but one leading up to it. Compare this figure and the others, with those in the completed fresco. How all preceding designs pale before the painting ! Now, for the first time, the columns, which up to this point, have served to fill the space, are omitted, and in their stead the figures appear, which extending out on both sides to the edge of the painting, give evi- dence of a wholly new and grand conception. A number of studies are preserved of the latter ; splendid free pen and ink drawings, which proclaim Raphael's grand style. According to my conjecture, it was not until this final revision that the idea 100 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. dawned upon him of connecting the picture with the building of St. Peter's. Till then the plan had been to paint the Revelation of the Trinity, as the centre of the Roman Catholic faith, and the intel- lectual labor devoted to its verification, may have been all that the Pope wished to have represented. This led up to the idea of painting the suddenness of its resolution, out of which grew at last the radiant breaking forth from the cloud to give to this under- taking of Julius the sanction and support of God Almighty and His heavenly host. Opposite the Disputa the second unbroken wall of the Camera della Segnatura bears a painting whose meaning is indicated by an ideal female figure above with the inscription " Causarum Cognitio." Not en- throned upon a cloud like the Goddess (Knowledge of Things Divine) opposite, but seated upon a golden stool, the arms to which are plastic representations of the many breasted Diana of Ephesus (symbol of all sustaining nature). Her arms are bare, and with one she holds the book which rests upon her thigh. Her garment of many colors is sown with stars upon a ground-work pattern of leaves and little moving fishes, the symbols of sea, earth and heaven. Two cupids, or angels, wait upon her. As Michael Angelo in the Sibyls of the Sistine Chapel, has given us a two-fold representation of the feminine form, one in its virginal heroic force, the other in its maternal spiritual power, so too has Raphael in his four figures on the ceiling of the THE CAMERA BELLA SEGNATURA. 101 Camera della Segnatura. The " Causarum Cog- ( nitio" belongs rather to the first class, while the "Divinarum Rerum Notitia" has more of the matronly element of the second. Neither the name School of Athens nor the Disputa is found in Raphael's day. Both are later inventions, and have had greater influence on the interpretation of the painting than was their due. Earlier designs for the composition are wanting ; we have in Milan, however, the large cartoon, after which the painting was put upon the wall ; (though nothing of the kind exists for the Disputa) ; it is a carefully executed drawing, yet some of the figures in the painting are still missing which were added while the picture was in progress. Large beautiful photographs of the cartoon are to be obtained. We look into high halls, probably of a temple. A glorious nobly conceived piece of architecture, the flower of what Bramante bore in his imagination ; a picture of St. Peter's, as according to his con- ception it was one day to appear. This is only a conjecture, but one often repeated, and to-day gener- ally accepted. This building rests upon an ele- vation, to which a series of steps, intersecting the whole painting, lead up. Here, a vast assemblage of people, old and young, mingling together, cover the elevation, the steps, and the space below ; to the right and left in the foreground, the masses of fig- ures are particularly dense ; in the centre above the steps and under the high vault of the main aisle we 102 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. find the figures which first attract our attention ; two men side by side, one stepping a little forward as if about to speak, the other with upraised arm as if awaiting the moment when he too might speak. Around them men and youths, who, in attitude and gesture, express fervent interest in what they have heard. Paul is portrayed, as he enters among the Greek philosophers, and in the spirit of Christ's teachings, speaks to them of God and immortality. Had not their own poets said that mankind was of divine origin? By the side of Paul, as representa- tive of Greek Philosophy, stands an old man point- ing heavenward, who has been variously interpreted. It is not an exact picture of the historical event nar- rated in the Acts of the Apostles, but in connection with this a symbolic representation of the contact of Christian and heathen philosophy. The history of scholasticism renders it clear why this scene and this apostle were chosen. Down to the twelfth century the Bible and the writings of the Christian Fathers were the material with which theological disputes were carried on. Then an at- tempt was made by Abelard, at the University of Paris, to introduce as a third element " human rea- son." Paul was the one who made the harmony between Greek and Christian learning serviceable to the cause of the Gospels. Vasari's interpretation of the School of Athens coincides herewith. But we have seen that Vasari's one-sided and therefore unsatisfactory explanation of the Disputa needs to THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATUEA. 103 be enlarged and completed by the inscription on the engraving of this fresco which appeared at the same time with his book (1580) ; this is also true with the School of Athens. The inscription on the plate by Ghisi, who likewise engraved the School of Athens, furnishes the explanation we need, that Paul's en- trance among the Athenian philosophers is what Raphael has here represented. Vasari (who erro- neously calls the two central figures Plato and Aris- totle) adds that the union of heathen philosophy and Christian theology is here depicted. Further errors are to be traced to him ; in the group below r for example, at the foot of the steps to the right he perceives the Evangelists whom Raphael would hardly have introduced in this place. The princi- pal figure is Paul. As he stretches his arm toward us he seems to command silence. He stands before us in youthful vigor. The representation of Paul was one of the tasks present to Raphael's imagination throughout his en- tire life. At the opening of the preceding chapter the Madonna di San Antonio was mentioned. Its place is unquestionably among the works by Ra- phael's hand which serve as landmarks from which to judge his progress. His work also shows how improbable it is, that a number of other things at- tributed to him at this period were really his. If,, however, we compare this Madonna with the Sposa- lizio, we see marked development and an indepen- dent working after nature, although at the same 104 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. time imitation of Fra Bartolommeo, as in the Sposa- lizio of Perugino. Raphael made it his chief aim in the Madonna di San Antonio to portray Peter and Paul with life-like reality, and succeeded so well that no one (as in the case of the Sposalizio) would take it for the work of a beginner, little more than twenty years of age, but would feel compelled to acknowledge the finished master. The contrast em- phasized between the two men, who were the foun- ders of the Roman Church, rests upon the deepest study of nature exhibited in many delicate touches which become apparent to us only by degrees as we study the picture. We begin naturally by a comparison of the faces. Peter is gazing at us with an expression of tranquil majesty, or in other words of self-conscious sover- eignty, which, to all who regard him as specially installed by Christ as his successor, must seem his distinguishing characteristic. Raphael, in his later representations of Peter, has not conceived him with quite this sovereign repose, but has laid the main accent on a certain power of resistance, men- tal as well as physical. It seems to me that the face of God above Christ in the Di sputa had its origin in this first conception of Peter's, in the Ma- donna di San Antonio, and if so, Raphael in his representation of the Almighty is not the imitator of Michael Angelo. Indeed, Michael Angelo's God the Father is wholly different from Raphael's. To the left of the Madonna, Paul has bowed his head a THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA 105 little and fastened his eyes upon the book he is hold- ing open with both hands. He is a younger man than Peter. The crown of his head, it is true, is bald, save a lock on the forehead ; but at the back, the hail*, which reaches down to his neck, is dark and rich, like his long heavy beard. The character of a face can only be interpreted to a certain extent ; but I believe there can be no error in recognizing Peter here as the representative of self-reliant en- ergy, and Paul as the type of the enthusiastic stu- dent, though with no less physical strength. The look of an overwhelming experience, which strikes us in Peter's eyes, might not be felt if Paul's eyes were likewise raised. We must not forget that to the Catholic Church, Paul was not alone the soldier and the student (as sword and book indicate), but the entranced visionary to whose sight the heavens were opened. One of Raphael's poems begins with the words, " As Paid, after looking upon the myste- ries of God kept silence, so will I close my mouth concerning that which I have learned in the arms of my beloved." The labor and the ability with which Raphael executed these two apostles is evident, and regarded from a purely artistic standpoint, form an effective contrast in their manly earnestness to the Madonna and Virgins at the side of her throne. In the Disputa we meet Paul and Peter for the second time, but in such wholly different guise, that the innocence Raphael displays in making these saintly personages outwardly subservient to artistic 106 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. requirements is really striking. As old men they here take the first place to the right and left with the heavenly host on the cloud bank. But how lit tie thought Raphael had of making these the estab- lished type is plain from the fresco of Attila before Rome, painted later in the second Vatican chamber. Here Paul and Peter are storming down from Heaven with drawn swords to defend the Holy City ; powerful men with flowing hair and beards, in every way calculated not only to display the sword but to use it. In the full bloom of youth, on the other hand, we see Paul beside St. Cecilia in Bologna ; praise of which as it fell from Goethe's lips a hundred years ago sounds still the sweetest and the best. Here we see Paul standing wrapt in himself, an echo of the music which had floated down to him from the heav- enly spheres filling his soul. His dark hair, which would curl if it were longer, covers his whole head in masses, and his beard is equally dark and full. His downward turned glance is shaded, youthful strength, beauty and manliness are expressed in the whole figure. This painting was executed not long after the School of Athens, but before the composi- tions for the Tapestries, where we meet Paul and Peter in the prime of life and vigor. And here for a second time is a representation of Paul preaching in Athens, now historically conceived according to the Acts of the Apostles. That Raphael had consulted the Holy Scriptures THE CAMERA BELLA SEGNATURA. 107 for the Paul in the School of Athens is proved in a small matter which for the interpretation of the picture assumes a certain importance. Various attempts have been made to use the stairs which run straight across from side to side in interpret- ing the picture, and Scherer with great acumen discovered in the writings of Marsilio Ficino, pas- sages which might give rise to the belief that these broad steps leading up to the temple in so conspicuous a manner had some distinct symbolic significance. To understand the painting we natu- rally turn to the chapter in Acts where Paul's per- sonal appearance is so effectively described. Paul is distinguished from the other Apostles by the fact that his life was full of striking events which bore some analogy to the experience of modern days, and that he is presented in situations with which our imagination easily identifies itself. In chapter twenty-one we are told how the Roman soldiers arrested Paul upon the accusation of the Jews in the temple of Jerusalem, " and when he came upon the stairs, so it was, that he was borne of the soldiers for the violence of the people." . . . "And, as Paul was to be led into the castle he said to the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? " And now we read, "Paul stood on the stairs and beckoned with the hand unto the people." Involuntarily the Paul of the School of Athens rises before us as he stands at the top of the flight of stairs and commandingly stretches out his hand. And further (chapter twenty-six), 108 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. when Paul is before Agrippa, we read, "Then Paul stretched forth his hand and answered for himself." This outstretched arm we find again especially in the compositions for the Tapestries. But Masaccio had already recognized it as characteristic of Paul in the Brancacci chapel. Masaccio also perceived the ne- cessity of making the figure of the Apostle in the highest degree life-like ; and Vasari gives us the name of the Florentine Bartolo di Angiolini, who served as the model for Paul. At the same time, in the School of Athens, as it now stands in the Camera della Segnatura (where fate has been so unkind to it) Paul is less strong and grand than in the Milan cartoon for the picture, which, as Raphael's drawing, preserves the figure in all its initial freshness and truth. Here only do we fully recognize the kinship of this youthful Paul, with the Paul in the St. Cecilia. Much acumen and learning have been expended in the defence (notwithstanding Ghisi's inscription) of Vasari's statement that Raphael intended to re- present Aristotle and not Paul by this figure. But this has been for the most part abandoned, as well as the attempt to regard all the figures in the School of Athens as an artificial rendering of the history of Greek Philosophy. These efforts to explain the painting did not begin until the close of the seven- teenth century. It must, indeed, be admitted, that there exists no conclusive proof either for Paul or Aristotle. Therefore, each may decide according to THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. 109 his individual judgment ; but if it be asked which name has the greater probability on its side, the answer must be " Paul's." It is only at the first blush that an argument can be drawn in favor of Aristotle from the fact that the book which he holds supported on his thigh bears the title " Etica," whilst that under the arm of the man next to him is " Fisico." These inscriptions which Vasari mentions, it is true, cannot in Raphael's time have had just the same spelling and the self- same characters they have to-day. This is now gen- erally admitted. It is more in favor of Aristotle that he too in representations and descriptions is often spoken of with outstretched arm as for instance in Sidonius Apollinaris' letters whose description of the pictures and busts of the ancient philosophers it seems Raphael knew and used for several of his characters in the School of Athens. The suggestive interpretation of the painting in this sense by Goethe in his Theory of Colors speaks further for the recognition of the two central fig- ures as Plato and Aristotle. He regards these men as representatives of the two systems of phil- osophy which have moved and divided mankind so long as we have any record of their thoughts. In direct opposition, however, to Goethe's opinion is the fact that we are unable to prove that men in Raphael's time were agitated, or even in the slight- est degree affected by this antagonism. Neither Aristotle nor Plato had deeper significance for 110 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Raphael, who, as we have seen, was busied, his life- long, in giving- form to his conception of Paul. Under Paul's banner the Reformation arose the germs of which in Raphael's life-time burst forth simultaneously over all Europe, and which was only in its final >tr.iggles restricted to Germany. Paul is the most living historic character of the age of the Reformation. In him men saw the fountain head of ideas that must produce a reform in the church. The past, as men saw it represented by the intellectual culture of the Greeks, was a supremely blessed state, and such as it seemed almost impossible mankind should ever attain to again. The utmost they could do was to pursue intelligently an exhaustive study of the writings and works of art brought down to us from this age of highest intellectual life and creative ability. Involuntarily they looked upon Raphael, who owed so much to antiquity, as a participator in these ideas. But he, strongly rooted in his own century and filled with the con- sciousness of unusual creative power, could not rank it lower than any of the preceding centuries, how- ever gloriously they might shine forth. The dis- tinction between Christian sentiment and the opinions and principles of antiquity, so familiar to us to-day, did not exist for Raphael ; the church of his time had absorbed into itself, and, as it were, amalgamated with it, the spirit of ancient Greece, so far as it could be made serviceable. Plato, Aris- totle and Paul stood side by side, native to the same historic element, heirs to a like spiritual heritage. THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. Ill The School of Athens and the Disputa opposite cover the two whole walls of the Camera della Segnatura. Each of the other walls is broken by a large window, which, facing east and west, admits the rays of the morning and evening sun. These high broad windows make such a break in the sur- face that it would seem scarcely possible to paint here an harmonious composition. Raphael however has proved his genius, and not alone in the manage- ment of the Camera della Segnatura, but also in the corresponding walls of the room adjoining. This broken surface must serve him to represent Parnassus (or, as Vasari says, the Helicon), which reaches its summit right over the window and slopes off to the right and left. The sides and top are clothed with slender laurel trees, beneath whose delicate foliage the dwellers on the sacred Mount are standing or reclining. These trees give to the picture that unity which in the School of Athens is furnished by the architecture, and in the Disputa by the heavy masses of cloud. On the crown of the mountain sits Apollo, naked as a god may, with full face toward us, playing the viol with quiet en- joyment ; while the Apollo which fills one of the niches of the temple in the School of Athens is intended to be nothing but the picture of a statue, (and strangely enough is the copy of a Narcissus which some over-zealous restorer converted into an Apollo by placing a lyre upon his arm); the Apollo of the Parnassus has nothing of the immovable 112 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. repose of a sculptured work but is absolutely thrilled with life and motion. The Muses grouped about him are not all in antique costume but some among them wear the dress of high-born ladies of the time, draped in tasteful and elegant folds. Thus Apollo and the Muses occupy the summit of the mountain which Homer, Virgil and Dante, half in the back-ground at the left, seem to have just reached ; these three form a group by themselves of which Homer is the most distinguished member. All ages have acknowledged him the first among poets. With head thrown back and his blind eyes raised to heaven, he seems to utter inspired words ; the others are silent, or, as Homer's song gradually reaches their ears, enforce silence upon one another ; only Apollo seems to accompany the poet's words with a subdued strain from his viol. Raphael thus succeeds in bringing action into the composition. While in the Disputa the sudden revealing of God's glory stills the noise and confusion of the assembly, and, in the School of Athens, Paul's voice commands the general attention, so in the Parnassus, Homer's song chains the ear and hushes the tongue. It remains to be said with regard to the other figures in the composition that, as we see in the Disputa and the School of Athens men of all centuries min- gled together arbitrarily, there is no reason for supposing Raphael's idea was to construct a sys- tematic history of poetic literature. Among the poets of his own time, whom Raphael has here realis- THE CAMERA BELLA SEGNATURA. 113 tically portrayed, I have tried to find his father to whom he might here well have awarded a place. In the School of Athens, quite at the edge on the right, he introduced his own portrait at the last moment (for it is not on the Milan cartoon); in the Disputa we meet with the figure of his patron Bramante; and in the Parnassus he might have found room for old Giovanni Santi. Perhaps he has, for there are several life-like portraits still unexplained.* Doubtless Raphael possessed a like- ness of his father, if not by his own hand, by another's, though nothing authentic has come down to us. The earliest conception of the Parnassus is not extant in Raphael's own drawing, but is preserved in an excellent engraving of it by Marcantonio, whose graver has rescued for us so many of Raphael's sketches. We here see how Raphael at first had intended to give to the scene a purely antique form, and to picture it in the sense of an ancient bas-relief; stiff in antique drapery with the lyre on his arm, Apollo sits among the muses. The faces are simply in profile, and the somewhat affected attitudes intended to conceal the lack of action. There are not so many figures as in the painting, and the space is filled by bringing the laurel trees closer together, and giving them denser * Attempts have been made on the strength of Vasari's hints to interpret these various portraits. 114 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. foliage. As in the Disputa at first the architecture was enlivened by little cupids. Here, too, we see the winged doves throwing wreaths down out of the tree tops. That Raphael was embarrassed by the form of the surface to be painted, is proved by the fact that the groups to the right and left of the window upon the slopes of Parnassus have no real connection with those on the summit. The union is effected by means of trees and tree-tops rather than figures. We have a sketch which shows the first working- over of the composition, in which the figures drawn from nature are nude and in solid groups. This sketch (not the original but an old copy of it) is preserved at Oxford. The treatment corresponds to that in the Frankfort drawing for the Disputa.* It is a natural inference that Raphael thought he had found the final form for his composition, and began to execute the single figures after nature. Nevertheless he did not rest contented with it. Later designs, and now by Raphael's own hand, show that the painting as it stands completed, grew out of the Oxford sketch. The superiority of the finished works, especially the Disputa, consists in the final addition of a number of figures which of all seem to have the most life. In the School of Athens one figure in particular was added which im- presses us as altogether the most powerful, and as * The similarity to Fra Bartolommeo is also evident here. THE CAMERA DELL A SEGNATURA. 115 being one of the mainstays of the whole composition. No one standing before the School of Athens could conceive that this figure of the man reclining on the lower steps towards us, lost in deep thought, had not been there from the beginning. Nor can we im- agine the Parnassus without Sappho and the laurel- crowned poet in the foreground to the right and left of the window ; these figures supply the connecting link between the different parts, making them sub- servient, and yet were not added until the last. The bas-relief character of the first sketch, sug- gestive of antique models, is no longer perceptible in the finished painting. By the side of the Dis- puta and School of Athens the Parnassus seems more realistic and modern. The studies from nature, also, which we have for it, bear this stamp. As regards the harmonious relations of the figures, Raphael has succeeded in giving to this composition that look and tone of the accidental which distinguishes his later works. From the drapery has disappeared the last trace of any studied arrangement copied from the older masters, or the antique. In the Parnassus the robes sit far more comfortably on the figures than in the Disputa and School of Athens. This mingling of the ancient and modern discloses to us the sentiment of Raphael's day. The stately ele- gance of the Muses proves him to have been at home in the palaces of Rome, where at that time social intercourse was brilliant and varied. The marriage of the natural daughter of the Pope was celebrated 116 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. with riotous festivities. The younger nobles of Urbino, the Rovere (of Julius II. 's family) whom the childless Guidobaldo of Urbino (patron of Ra- phael and Giovanni Santi) had adopted, came to Rome, where the young duchess, of whom Bembo in the spring of 1570, says, " She grows more beauti- ful every day, " was the centre of attraction. Ra- phael found the hereditary princes of his native place holding the highest position ; he had executed various works for them, and probably received many proofs of their favor. It was at this time that he wrote the sonnets found on the later sketches of the Disputa, which, though not remarkable in form, please us in the highest degree by their glow of feeling. It is possible, also, that the figure of Poetry painted on the ceiling of the apartment, as vignette to the Parnassus, was a portrait from life, though we have lost all clue to the original.* Of the four figures she is the most beautiful. *' Numine Affla- tur," touched by the breath of God, reads the in- scription. She sits there with outstretched wings, a laurel wreath upon her brow, her young strong arms, which so forcibly suggest the humanity of the figure, bare to the shoulders ; she has crossed her feet, which are uncovered, and she is, in this position, indescribably beautiful. As for the cupids holding the tablets with the inscription, they are the loveliest * Distinguished ladies were often painted as Madonnas in Rome as well as among us. It would not be difficult to make a catalogue of the beautiful women who, under various characters, have been immortalized by artists. THE CAMERA BELLA SEGNATURA. 11T of all. For this figure we have proofs of an earlier less satisfactory conception, as well as for other com- positions on the ceiling. Of these I will mention only the Fall of Man in that part of the entire decoration which has preserved most of its original freshness. In the first sketch of this, the figures stand rather stiffly side by side ; Adam leaning against the trunk of a tree bends slightly forward to reach the fruit. In the painting all this is changed. Adam is seated with his face toward us. It is as if he had been awakened out of a reverie by a word from Eve's lips, or the light rustling of the branch as she bends it down to pluck the apple, turns abruptly and sees her beside him in all her seductive beauty. She stands smiling with the fatal fruit between the fingers of her raised hand. Who- could have resisted ? How differently is this scene represented by Michael Angelo, who at that time was painting not far from Raphael on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel ! These paintings inspire a joyous holiday spirit,, like the air of a spring morning. It is the breath of Roman life as it surrounded Raphael when he pre- pared himself to paint the apartment which the highest ruler of the world made his living room, and where he wished to give a reflex of the sublimesfc conceptions of his time. Every age has its ideal. Men have in all times held a vista open backward into a golden past, forward into a glorious future ; the dim apprehension of a repose, of a calm before 118 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. and after the continuous struggles of the nations within and without. And only through this belief is life to-day endurable. The individual labors that he may help his people onward to its attainment. Christian theology calls this state the Kingdom of God on earth, when all political ambition shall have disappeared and spiritual force shall be applied alone to the study of the human soul and the phe- nomena of nature. Every nation secretly cherishes the hope of being the chosen one to occupy the first place in this king- dom of the future. No where and at no time has this dream of the past and future been more confident, or included more magnificent visions, than in Rome when Raphael began to paint there. Hitherto Rome had been -nothing but a place wherein to ponder over vanished greatness. But already in the course of the Quattrocento, after the return of the popes from Avignon, the city was gradually adorned and embellished, and architectural works planned, to represent, in their external scope, the dignity of a world-ruling power. We know the projects of Nicholas V. We see his successors interested in building improvements, and the transformation of the city going on even in the hard times under the Borgias. These efforts, however, were solely to grat- ify the love of splendor, characteristic of the popes and cardinals, for no thought of erecting a new city to vie with the ancient had at that time been conceived. But we see Julius II. initiating this THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. 119 idea with startlingly magnificent undertakings. He wished to fill out the little of his life that remained,, and bring it to a glorious close, by actively enlisting as politician and soldier for the dignity of the Papacy and of Italy ; and, as lover of art and regenerator of the city, he passed on out of the region of mere projects to their energetic execution. He wished to bring Italy under the dominion of the church ; this was his purpose, although his programme did not read so, but setting out at the head of an army, he averred himself to be the " Liberator " of the Italians coming to relieve the cities from domestic tyrants and the country, as a whole, from the despotic sway of foreign barba- rians. In these campaigns he was victorious, and as regards Rome where no one had dared to lay a hand on St. Peter's, although its rows of columns had long threatened to fall, he had it torn down, and actually made a beginning toward carrying out the enormous plans of Bramante. So too the co- lossal designs for the palace of the Vatican, which likewise originated with Bramante, were put into execution ; these undertakings gave Rome the two monuments which make her the wonder among cities. We must consider how much it involved when Raphael, little more than twenty years of age, filled with inexhaustible imagination and marvellous cre- ative power was drawn into intimate relations with those two men, both of whom had weathered all the 120 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. storms of life, and now welcomed this child to their close and friendly companionship. It is difficult with the scientific knowledge of to- day, which enables us to extend the finite over such vast realms of space, to understand the limited views of the first half of the Cinquecento. The an- cients might conceive the world as a ball floating in boundless ether ; a formed something in the midst of a formless infinite nothing.* Traces of this con- ception had come down to Raphael's generation. To his age the earth was still the centre of creation, the one shape where all else was shapeless, while around it and behind the clouds the homes of the blessed revealed themselves. This heaven was imag- ined so close to the earth as to form a kind of aris- tocratic first floor to the Palace of the Universe, be- neath which the earth served as cellar. Visible stairs led up and down, just as the Greeks, a few thousand years before, had believed they saw the lower col- umns of the palace in which the gods lived shimmer- ing through the clouds veiling the summit of Olympus. Dante was the first, who, in artistic con- ception, connected Paradise, as the home of God and the blessed, with our mundane sphere. But if to the ancient Greeks Mount Olympus had been the place where the earthly touched the celes- tial, to Raphael's age Rome was this place. In ecclesiastical and political concerns Rome was the Eternal City ; capital of the world in all the past * Nitzsch, "Metaphysik" (ed. VViese,. THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. 121 and forever to be so in all the future. That any place on earth could compare with the dignity of ^ Rome was inconceivable. Since the beginning of time Rome had controlled the fate of the nations. And to-day whoever stands in Rome before the mon- uments of its past greatness feels thrilled with the power of the antagonistic elements which here found a battle-field, where ruins were heaped upon ruins and the mightiest works arose upon the wrecks of a world destroyed. Nowhere does the weakness and transitoriness of nations, as well as individuals, impress us so forcibly, and nowhere else so forcibly their greatness. All seems from the beginning transitory, a prey to death, yet nowhere do we find such a glorious exhibition of what man may accomplish in the short space of life allotted him. If such thoughts and feelings are awakened in us of later days who are neither of the Roman church nor of Italian nationality, to what degree must they have inspired those who in Raphael's day arrived at the place it was the highest aim of all ambition to reach, where wealth, family, and connections were subservient to intellectual potency, and where each man was only what the day or the hour gave him the power to be. This insistence on a man's intrin- sic worth was Rome's secret. One thing alone secured position, to be stronger than the rest or to make oneself indispensable to those who were stronger. It was not long after Raphael's arrival that Count 122 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Castiglione came riding one day into Rome, to try his fortune there, whence he wrote home to his mother regarding the future of one of his brothers whom he hoped to engage in the service of a cardi- nal : " He will be able to lead an independent life, and at once set before himself the goal for a high ambition." * " To form connections in the Vati- can," says another letter, "will be no trifle, but 'nothing venture, nothing have.' Rome is really the fountain head of all erudition." Erasmus of Rotterdam also wrote at that time from Rome to a friend : " It must be reckoned unusual success even to be noticed in Rome." Raphael we see at once promoted without any preparatory efforts such as men, even of the highest talent, were forced to make, and soaring immediately to the height to which his association with Julius II. and Bramante entitled him. Not as priest, scholar, or politician, nourish- ing expectations of a general kind, not dependent for the satisfaction of his ambition upon the oppor- tunities chance might afford, but independent, and as a creative artist, immediately taking a prominent part in the execution of works which embodied in symbols the high ideals of the time. We must bear in mind that in those days men hoped through a reform of the church to achieve every thing that could be included in the widest scope of human expectation. Just as in the period * Letters I, 17. THE CAMERA DELLA SEGNATURA. 123 immediately preceding the French Revolution, they believed in the possibility of a spiritual state which should elevate all classes and satisfy every wish. Ancient and modern life were supposed to have an equal share in this consummation. Raphael might well imagine St. Peter's, in its ultimate splendor, as the place where the religion of the future was to find its home and centre. There was no event through which the fruition of all these hopes could be so fitly symbolized as the preaching of Paul at Athens. According to the views of Raphael's age the task of philosophy consisted in this : that it should prepare the way for the elimination of all doubts concerning the nature of the Divine, which the material aspect of things awaken. But the so- lution itself could only be accomplished by religion. And as in the Disputa the heavens open to reconcile dissenting opinions by a revelation of the Trinity, so, in the School of Athens, Paul appears among the pagan philosophers to declare that what he brings is only the final deduction from their own teachings ; the sum and substance of all that we to-day call " The Renaissance." CARTOONS FOR THE TAPESTRIES. CHAPTER IV. THE CAKTOONS FOR THE TAPESTKIES. THE Camera della Segnatura was the last work Raphael completed for Julius II. Before the second apartment in the Vatican was finished, the Pope died. Cardinal Giovanni dei Medici (Lorenzo di Medici's youngest son) succeeded him. The favor of the Rovere could no longer be of service to Ra- phael, but the sympathy and interest of Leo X. and his family made amends for this loss, and Raphael soon saw himself raised to the control of a wider sphere of art, requiring a different economy of his talents. He was thirty years of age. The new Pope expected of Raphael something more than pictures. Bramante had died soon after Julius II., and Raphael was called to fill his place.* It was necessary for him now to prepare plans for the re-building of St. Peter's. Bramante had been the * Herr von Geymiiller's comprehensive, and we may say beauti- ful, work about Bramante elevates this great enemy of Michael Angelo and friend of Raphael to a position which heretofore it has been impossible to give him. Owing to the nature of the subject, books on architecture are written more especially for architects, else this life-work of the author would have found still greater ap- preciation than has been already awarded it. 127 128 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. centre of an extensive sphere of labor, which Ra- phael was obliged to keep actively in motion. Con- sider the number of people whose destinies were dependent upon him, and how many different things passed through his hands ! Leonardo da Vinci had held a life position at the Court of Laidovico Sforza, and Michael Angelo finally attained to it in his old age in Rome. Raphael mastered his new tasks with facility. One of his letters at that time to his uncle in Urbino proves in every line that he is now indeed in his proper element. Geymiiller has treated of Raphael as an architect, and criticized the specimens of his work in this direction which remain to us. The background of the School of Athens, he says, according to Vasari, was drawn by Bramante. Possibly ! But at any rate Raphael must have been able to do it himself, if he so soon replaced Bramante in the entire scope of his labors. We have to look upon him as a scholar of Bramante's, who from the outset had in- tended him to be his successor.* In providing the material for the reconstruction of St. Peter's, Raphael's attention was called to the buildings of ancient Rome, both above and beneath the ground. He was entrusted with the supervision of the excavations. No antique piece of orna- mented marble could be cut without his sanction. * One may affirm that the way in which Raphael places his figures, whether singly or in groups, in his compositions, betrays the architect. CARTOONS FOR THE TAPESTRIES. 129 Besides these new occupations, progress in the wall-paintings of the Vatican, and orders from pri- vate individuals (not merely for paintings exe- cuted by his own hands, but the ever-increasing mass of those done by his scholars and associates under his direction), he painted for the Pope on the walls of the Loggia a colossal picture-book of Bibli- cal illustrations. He decorated a bathroom for Cardinal Chigi. He painted pictures of saints for the King of France and promised to, who knows how many other noble Lords, all the works they wished to order, which he certainly could not always execute. Up to this time he had, as colorist, imitated dif- ferent masters, and each time with a certain enthu- siasm. But the artists whose works did, or might have influenced him, resembled each other and him- self in this respect, that their pictures were not con- ceived at first in color ; the color is made the final highest accessory, but nowhere is it in the beginning of vital necessity to the representation. The Venetians, on the contrary, under the leader- ship of a new master, had color in view from the outset. It seems as if their imagination could not work without color. To them, light and shade in an artistic sense, were conceivable only so far as represented through color. A painting by Gior- gione, if Raphael ever saw one, must have been like a revelation to him. I repeat that the difference be- tween Venetian and Florentine Roman painting, 130 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. which Raphael hitherto had exclusively known, lay in this : that with the latter the color was subservient to the drawing and modeling ; with the former, the drawing and modeling to the color. To use a simile one might say that the Florentine painters infused a touch of cold moonlight into their colors, but the Venetians, a few drops of the setting sun. Perhaps Sebastian del Piombo, who was a pupil of Gior- gione, had brought specimens of his master's paint- ing to Rome. As ever, in the first moments of enthusiasm over a new acquaintance, one is ready to imitate any pleasing peculiarity, we see Raphael becoming at once a scholar of the Venetians. He tries to apply the secret of the new manner to his own creation. The glorious picture of a woman in the Tribune, (bearing the date 1512) is thus to be accounted for. The generally received opinion is that it was painted by Sebastian del Piombo, who never could have produced such a work. It was certainly done by Raphael, and farther, though identical in drawing, how striking the contrast between the two portraits of Julius II., in the Uffizi, and in the Pitti Palace. In the first, he adheres to the old manner ; in the second, he has so completely entered into the new, that it has even been declared to be a Venetian copy of the first picture. The adoption of the new color element, however, is most fully proclaimed in the fresco of the Mass at Bolsena in the second Vatican stanza. This apartment, like the first, has two whole walls CARTOONS FOR THE TAPESTRIES. 131 opposite each other, and two walls broken by the windows, and a vaulted ceiling, all of which were to be painted. Raphael worked here in 1512-13. Three of the wall pictures were finished under Julius II., but on the fourth we see the figure of Leo X., compelling Attila's invading army to halt. However interesting these representations are, and however powerfully Julius II. is represented on the wall opposite, who, with the help of warriors coming down from heaven, strikes Heliodorus to the ground, however astonishing the third picture of Peter's release may be, these works in comparison with the Mass of Bolsena, have all something we call academic. The Sposalizio is distinguished by a quiet dignity, the Entombment and the works of the Camera by a poetic tone, expressed we might almost say in carefully measured verse ; but with the Miracle of Bolsena, the works begin which speak to us the language of the day, the prose, which, at its best, is the most perfect vehicle of cultivated na- tions for the communicntion of ideas. We feel as if we had a personal share in the events. A miracle is represented as taking place in Bol- sena, and Julius II. as spectator of its after effects. And how much there is in his mere presence ! He kneels before a chair,* upon which he rests his arms and hands folded in prayer ; a few steps behind him lower down, kneel cardinals, and at the foot of the * Faldistorio, a kind of folding chair. 132 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. same stairs the armed Swiss Guard stand on duty as in the Vatican of this day. * The miracle occurs in a church whose architecture we see filling the background in the upper part of the painting. The altar occupies the middle of the height above the window, steps lead up to it from both sides ; on the other side of this altar kneels the priest, who is reading the mass : behind him are the choir boys, and upon the stairs the people lost in an ecstacy of astonishment and adoration just as they appear in the churches on High Festival days. The miracle is, that before the eyes of a doubting priest the host is changed into flesh and blood. The Pope, with imposing iron dignity, gazes straight before him as if nothing of this kind could astonish him. The cardinals behind are equally composed, as if they experienced such things every day. The Swiss Guard in the performance of their service feel they have no right to trouble themselves about any thing farther. We behold the absolute sovereignty of God's representative on earth such as the Pope felt he was acknowledged to be, no matter what his personal character. And all these figures now painted in Titian's wannest, softest hues, who also next to Raphael understood the art of giving in his pictures only so much as the eye can comfortably take in ; there is never too much detail, and never too little. After Raphael, he is the most popular artist, because he appeals to the average intellect, and also because, like Raphael, he never seems to CARTOONS FOR THE TAPESTRIES. 133 toast of what lie can do. Diirer makes a third in this bond. All other great artists express in their works " We can do something which no one else can do." Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Correggio, Rubens, Vandyke, and Rembrandt allow us to feel that they are conscious of their power to produce creations of an extraordinary kind. A certain amazement 011 our part, too, betokens the fact that we recognize them as lofty aristocrats with whom we cannot hold comradeship. Raphael and Titian on the other hand are genial men with whom we feel at home, and their pictures reproduce men whom we seem to remember as old acquaintances. Raphael brings Julius close to us in life-like reality. As one on festive occasions holds up a child high above the crowd when the Emperor is passing, and says,. " There he is, now look at him well," so Raphael lets us see Julius in the Mass of Bolsena ; retaining- his self-possession in the face of miracles, and con- scious of immense power and dignity. Raphael has painted the Pope several times, and always with a commanding air ; emphasizing this one aspect of the man, although many others must surely have presented themselves to him. In these portraits he has erected a monument to Julius with- out which all the other records of the man would lose their true ring. As the face of an old seaman is scarred and stained by the long stormy days he has lived through, so the features of the Pope, who never knew any thing like repose, wear the impress 134 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. of his tempest-tossed life. Vehemence, tenacity, shrewdness, and the burning necessity of cherishing great designs, even if they can only be carried through by violence, these were the elements by which he rose and which governed him to his very last breath. Storms prevail, but there are frequent and sudden gleams of sunshine. His desire to leave behind artistic monuments of his power, seems as keen as that for political aggrandizement. Julius has one of the youthful natures whose thoughts of the present drown all recollection of the past, and who each day attack afresh whatever refuses to bend to them. But, allied with this energy, was the neces- sity of moments of retirement amid beautiful sur- roundings. Of all this we find confirmation strong in Raphael's portraits. In that of the Pitti Palace, Julius is sitting with slight, kindly inclination of the head, as if a smile were about to dawn on his face. His double nature has been caught. The massive bone structure of the head and brow por- trays the terrible power of the old man. The hands, however, are almost .delicate, with long slender fin- gers contrasting strangely with the gigantic strength of the wrists. Julius well understood his advantage in making Raphael and Michael Angelo the pro- laimers of what was great and attractive in his nature.* * Of Julius II. 's portrait in the Pitti Palace, I made these notes <1873). Compared with Leo X. and his cardinals, it impresses us like a Titian, soft, no harsh outlines, coloring made of chief im- portance, the brush everywhere visible. Color soft and liquid. Fa- CARTOONS FOR THE TAPE8TRIKS. 135 As a portrait painter, Raphael suffers from the fact that the accidentally preserved panel pictures are regarded as the standard of his achievements in this direction. But this series of disconnected works of unequal merit, into which many have been smuggled which certainly are not by his hand, should not be allowed to determine our judgment. Of the por- traits in the first Florentine period which bear his name, only a few really belong to him. Leo X. with the cardinals is his best work, next to the por- traits of Julius. Among the later panel pictures ranked as portraits, are many pieces now in a ruin- ous condition, and some whose origin is problematic. The renowned and far too greatly admired Giovanna of Arragon is the work of his scholars. The finest of his later pei'iod is the violin player II Suonatore in the Sciarra Palace ; the best of his earlier, the young woman in the Barberini in Rome, supposed to have been his innamorata, whose beauty is not one whit lessened that some modern critics have chosen to array themselves against her. Also that of Sigis- mondo Conti, kneeling in- prayer, deserA r es mention here as one of Raphael's noblest and most expressive portraits : the same Conti who gave the order for cial outlines done with the brush. Delicacy of the hands (the left re-painted). Softness of the beard and of the fur trimming. Trans- parency of the shadows. Grand broad handling of accessories. Ra- diance over the whole. Entirely new treatment of the red silk collar. Background of a very dark green. I print these notes (1885) because according to my present feeling they are the points which first strike the observer. 13(3 THE LIKE OF RAPHAEL. the Madonna di Foligno, and who appears himself in the foreground of the picture. But one becomes best acquainted with Raphael as a delineator of living men through the infinite number of portraits strewn ;ill over the frescoes in the Vatican rooms. It seems to have been natural with him after seeing, to give permanent form to what he saw. Certainly he has immortalized the whole court of Leo X., and Julius. The names indeed are lost, but I have often imagined when these faces were looking down upon me, they were begging me to give them back their names.* There are proud and distinguished lords -among them ; yet who knows any thing of them now, who will tell of their deeds ? As early as the Camera della Segnatura, Raphael introduced portraits into his compositions ; in the Camera dell" Incendio we find them in excess ; in the Stanza dell' Eliodoro (which in point of time comes between the two), his skill in mingling ideal and real figures, thereby elevating each, appears at its highest. As before remarked, however, it is plain that Raphael introduced the element of realism last. In the Par- nassus the portraits are all later additions. In the School of Athens, Raphael himself and the man visible next to him (whom Vasari falsely calls Per- ugino) are not to be found in the Milan Cartoon. * Raphael for his purpose must have drawn these persons from life. It is curious that so few of the designs made for them have been preserved. Yet if one would bring into comparison with them the medallions and works by other painters, names could sutJy be found for many of the figures. CARTOONS FOR THE TAPESTRIES. 137 In the first sketch of the Expulsion of Helio- clorus, the Pope and his attendants are wanting in the left foreground (afterward made such a graphic and essential feature), and we likewise miss Leo X. in the first sketch for the Banishment of Attila. In the Mass of Bolsena, the designs are com- posed of purely ideal figures, and only in work- ing them over did Raphael introduce the Swiss Guards, which, taken as they were from .real life, create the contrast that renders the work so attrac- tive. Raphael had other aims. The window juts into the wall in such a way that the surface afforded on the left is narrower than on the right. This broad right side in the sketch is not assigned to the Pope, as the fresco shows, but to the people. Julius II. (whom, therefore, we should have to imagine on the opposite side turning to the right,) on this nar- row side could have but few attendants given him, hence his presence at the taking place of the miracle loses in importance. If Raphael had been allowed to hold to his first idea, he would have made the astounded people the main subject of his picture and the composition would have gained in spiritual meaning. As it now appears it is the most impos- ing historic pageant that I know. It exceeds the Venetian paintings in quiet simplicity with no less display of pomp. Here is shown how use may be made of the portraits of contemporaries, as a touch of real unalloyed nature, while retaining the full force of ideal conception. 188 TIIK UKK OK i: \rn \i i .M i.l. i. .1 ItOW II- . It . ll.i . | .;i i i.l i ii" i. HI I k.\r heen at. the time when those who HIT represented in it, won? still in tho flesh, and when tin? oolors, now dimmed by dust and ago, won? their printino glow. It wan ootnparativoly easy to Introduce Pope In- IHI into Mi.- |.i.-i mi-. as hr could ni.il..- him and In suite im-n? Mprciaioi'M of tin? Ht,inii(? had to lx? involvr\ dierw, who, without knowing what i* happetiinj(, utand an if Mtnis painted, accord- ing to his design, in the great hall of the Battle of Constantine. And farther, that fourth wall of the Camera della Segnatura in the beginning was to have borne a symbolic representation of Divine justice (afterward wholly given up) which is preserved in an India ink drawing in the Louvre. Here we see around the window open- ing a symmetrical composition. God, the Father, distributes among his angels the trumpets, with whose blast the terrible scenes of destruction in the Apocalypse open. This Raphael represented as Diirer had drawn it in his wood-cuts for Revelations. Later, when Raphael was at work upon the Tapes- tries, he was in personal communication with Diirer, and they had sent to each other some of their CARTOONS FOR THE TAPESTRIES. 151 works.* This was in 1515. A number of the sheets of Diirer's Kleine Passion, however, are dated 1513, and among them we find the original of Raphael's Healing of the Cripple. It is true that Raphael has reproduced the idea lie caught in a wholly new form out of his own imagination, but the work still bears the traces of its origin. Again in this cartoon, Raphael has combined in one scene a series of moments divided in point of time. The stage is filled with rows of columns which stretch away far into the background. Be- tween them we see, to the left, the glow of the outer air, to the right, a temple in the dimness of twilight ; it may be either the entrance to the temple, or to the hall of Solomon. The two middle rows of col- umns meet the front ones at the edge of the picture, setting this spot apart. Here the miracle is per- formed. This centre seems as it were specially framed in ; the other portions of the composition to the right and left are filled with crowds of people. Raphael pictures the astonishment which the healing of the lame man calls forth, and at the same time the expectation of the miracle before it occurs. As with the Mass of Bolseiia, whilst the miracle is tak- * Diirer's own portrait described by Vasari, which he sent U> Raphael at this time, is lost; the drawing which Raphael sent Diirer with a note upon it written by himself to say it c:ime from Raphael we still possess; two nude manly figures, studies inret HAt'ttAKL throo rojjro*ontati>/n* tho (/onronwn of tho I'ro- r://n*il ; lit whilst 1 fchonld a^ro,o with him* if tho f'rooomtil, who Mirtftittly owwj/io* tho ootitro of tho eotttpoftHiott, woro a |or*on of more woigjit, Thai flaphaol Uwright of arr^ it th n t eompoMion r^nnan* ai^r H th uf VAymtt* whi/;h i* brought hav<; brought hi* i/xloJ,* *tmi^ht on to tho C,rtt#rtt. ('oin|firo it with tho I>oath of An^ horo a oaroful rflo)lin^ i* aho#t $ti^lit in tho, wmfiwwrti of ^un and *hado, or af*f>oar sw^m hy tho o/mirnon li^ht of day, A lo/jk of common reality lio* ovor tio wholo whioh rtitttitui* u* of photograph*, Tho hand ^?tMro* aro CAKTOONS FOU THE TAPE8TBJLE6. 157 ing. and especially noticeable because each ngnse uses its hands ; most of all Elymas, who is trying to interrupt Paul's discourse, and terrified by the dark- ness creeping upon him, stretches out his arms like huge feelers, which grope tremblingly about in the empty air. The others press near, without dividing into groups, lictors and retinue filling the steps which lead up to the elevation upon which is the Proconsul's seat, and with lively gesticulations are expounding to the followers of the false prophet their conclusions about this strange spectacle. We feel that this unexpected turn of events has given a last decisive emphasis to Paul's eloquence. Raphael's conclusion from the experience of life seems to have been that the right word spoken at tle right moment is the true propelling power for mankind. The times in which he lived differed from ours in BO far that fruitful thought in our day is for the most part offered in print and even the spoken word impresses us as if read from invisible leaves. The writings of Luther, on the contrary, and the Epistles of Paul affect us like living speech caught and perpetuated. The rise of the Church depended upon what was circulated b} r word of mouth. The compositions in which Raphael has glorified Paul show him as the preacher, and it would seem as if Raphael could never exhaust the subject. As preacher, however, he is most striking in the hist Cartoon, which is a repetition of the scene 158 THE LIFE OB^ RAPHAEL. before illustrated, of Paul among the Athenian Philosophers. The Sacrifice at Lystra makes the exhibition of a heathen sacrifice the central and principal subject. Raphael has used for it antique bas-reliefs, but has so transformed the material borrowed as to make it his legitimate possession. At the right, amid a dense throng of people, the priests are approaching with the animal to be sacrificed. The healed cripple full of zeal, and inspired by a faith exceeding that of all the others, worships with uplifted hands. Close beside him and stooping over is an old man who seems to be searching for the scar in the healed limb. Before the temple, upon whose steps to the left stand Paul and Barnabas, the procession has made a halt, and an altar is here with boys serving, one of whom is playing on a flute, whilst the other bears a casket. One of the slayers of the oxen to be sacrificed, kneeling, presses the head of the ani- mal to the ground, with one hand, whilst with the other he seizes it playfully by the mouth. Another stands beside him swinging a powerful axe which is just on the point of descending with a whiz upon the creature's head. But Paul rends his garments, and a youth out of the crowd forcing his way to the front, tries with outstretched hand to stop the raised arm ; we feel that a few seconds later and the Apostle himself would have given the check. We remark how Raphael by selecting that moment when Paul is only leading up to his subsequent protest CARTOONS FOR THE TAPESTRIES. 159 makes it possible to expose the whole sacrificial scene. And also how simply by a statue of Mercury set up in the background, he reminds us that the inhabitants of Lystra looked upon Paul as Mercury; Raphael aims to make everything distinctly under- stood. In the Preaching at Athens we see, too, in what a simple way he indicates that the scene of action is the Forum of Athens (as the Vulgate translates the Areopagus). Among the buildings which enclose the Athenian market-place Raphael places the Colosseum, whose mighty architecture bounds the Roman Forum, at one end. He has never represented Paul the preacher more power- fully than when he is addressing the Athenians ; in fact, no where in the realm of art has preaching ever been more effectively represented. Here, at last, Paul is the principal character. Nor is his conception based on the special momen- tary effect of some passage in the sermon, but on the whole discourse in its full range and scope. The demeanor of the listeners reflects the impression made by the succession of thoughts. Raphael here conceives the seventeenth chapter of Acts somewhat differently from that in the School of Athens, where his treatment of the subject is to a certain extent sym- bolical. For the wall of the Camera della Segna- tura, the narrative afforded him the great contrast of the scriptural life of the Greeks, whose own ideas Paul made the basis from which to evolve his new 160 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. teaching. He has classified into comprehensive groups the representatives of the entire mental world of antiquity, and brought into the centre of these, Paul, one man, to confront the masses and attack alone and unaided the might of paganism. In the Cartoons for the Tapestries, he does not revert to this ; he merely pictures the behavior of those who are described in The Acts as determined at least once again to hear these things. In the Camera della Segnatura is characterized the dissonance in the audience ; one part beckoning people to come and listen, the other moving off dissatisfied ; one man, as we have already said, ascends the steps, while the other descends. In the Cartoon they all stand lis- tening, each in his individual way. The faces reveal the whole gamut of emotions, from the sharp scepti- cism of the last person on the left to the entire self- surrender and ecstacy of faith manifested by the two, far on the right. Let us try to analyze the nature of the feelings which move Paul and which he wished to infuse into the souls of his hearers. His arms strain upward, and the fingers apart, tremble with the intense force and elevation of his discourse. His brow protrudes, as if to impart its thoughts directly to the listen- ing multitude. Firm as a rock he stands there. We have seen why the Cartoons for the Tapestries have become of decisive importance for Raphael's historic position ; it was only after they were again known that enthusiastic Englishmen and Germans CARTOONS FOR THE TAPESTRIES. 161 awarded to him the rank which is his due. From the simple Madonna painter, enrapturing the Ro- manic nations, he is henceforth to the German world the accepted interpreter of the grandest events of sacred history. It is now clear to us how tri- fling was the effect of the Tapestries in their day in Rome, where, when they arrived, finished, from the Netherlands, people seem to have been struck only with their splendor and technical perfection, for we find nothing said of the meaning of these representations. The Cartoons were sent to the Netherlands one after the other as Raphael finished them, to receive there the full effect of color. We cannot judge of this to-day, unhappily because the stuffs have faded very unequally. Some of the best preserved pieces, however, show that the most brilliant and varied colors were chosen. But when Raphael stood before the Tapestries it must have been to him a strange meeting. Nobody has ever disputed the claims of these pieces to high artistic merit, yet it is perfectly certain that with those who manufactured them in such superb style, the ruling idea had not been to bring out their high spiritual significance. If the works Raphael's schol- ars executed in his atelier according to his drawings and under his very eyes, allow us to discover imme- diately that he himself had not given his best to them, how vastly more is this the case here ? These Tapestries to-day, even in the most finely executed 162 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. portions, do not contain one line which comes up to the Cartoons. All the nice shades of expression which Raphael had given to the faces were unintel- ligible to the Netherland workmen, who at that time could not rise above the naturalism of their own school.* As we ask what would Rome be if Leonardo had executed his Last Supper there, instead of in the secluded refectory of a cloister in Milan (let us suppose in the Sistine Chapel, in place of Perugino's well-preserved painting of the Supper), we may add what would Rome have won coidd Raphael but have executed these Cartoons in fresco in the very place, in the same Chapel, where on high festival days these distorted renderings of them were hung up ? * It was first between 1420-1430 that the Netherland masters (not to their advantage) went over to Italian art. Vasari asserts that even on the Cartoons, Raphael received help from his pupils. Nevertheless, they seem to-day so much his own, that we might claim every stroke as the work of his hand, and surely no one was made without him. None of his works, with the exception of the last, of which I shall speak in the next chapter, appear so clearly an embodiment of his individual feeling. The correctness of this ia proved by other contemporary works which he was forced to adapt to the special purposes for wMch they were undertaken. THE SISTINE MADONNA. CHAPTER V. THE SISTINE MADONNA AND THE TRANSFIGURATION. /. THE SISTINE MADONNA. ALL Raphael's Madonnas must now be discussed before speaking of his last and most beautiful, the Sistine or Dresden Madonna. Up to the time of Leo X., Raphael's Madonnas, had been work of only secondary interest to him ; that is to say, no one of them had been created so- purely from a soul-felt need of expression as to> seem a revelation of himself. Madonnas~were in. requisition in Italy at all times and in all places^ No house, hardly a room, was without one, and iir the churches the number was unlimited. Every imagi- nable position for both mother and child had been exhausted long before Raphael's advent. Origi- nality, in the modern sense, was out of the ques- tion. The development of the Madonna type followed in the course of centuries that of other sacred char- acters, and the Queen of Heaven, at first sitting en- throned with an air of stolid, and then of tranquil majesty, became the tender, weeping, despairing; 166 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. mother. Every nuance in the life of woman, from her birth to her death, found in Mary its transfig- ured symbol. The artist might here simply draw on his own experience, in spite of the infinite num- ber of predecessors, just as every human being must exhaust for himself the range of human feeling. Through the legendary history of Mary, her exist- ence has been made a compound of the most varied scenes of our inward and outward life. If we were to try to collect and arrange all the pictures of Mary still in existence, we should be quite justified in .speaking of the number of them as infinite. Under Madonnas, in the strictest sense, is to be understood Mary with the child, or with two children, or even surrounded by Joseph, Anna, and the saints ; in these latter, however, Mary does not always form the centre, and therefore loses in some degree the character of an image to be worshipped, assuming instead a form of legendary illustration. I have been obliged to declare as problematic the Madonnas ascribed to Raphael in his youthful days, or up to the Sposalizio. The earliest of these is the little miniature-like Madonna, Staffa Conestabile, which remained in Perugia until recently, when it was purchased and taken to Russia. In Perugia it had retained its original quaint little frame. There is a pen-and-ink drawing in Berlin of the same size as the painting. On this sheet she has a pomegranate in her hand, in the painting an open book. When in Russia the painting was transferred from wood to THE SISTINE MADONNA. 167 canvas, it came out that here, too, a pomegranate had originally been painted. I advocated the pur- chase of this glorious drawing at the time, and long after contradicted those who ascribed it to Perugiiio, yet, after all, 1 hardly dare now to regard it as Raphael's work. Also our little Madonna, with St. Francis and St. Jerome to the right and left, an enchanting little picture, over which the original blond varnish still lies, is the work, I am convinced, of Perugino ; nor is the Madonna Terranuova by Raphael, to say nothing of other Madonnas which in the Berlin galleiy bear Raphael's name, and were chiefly derived from the Solly collection. Not that I question the beauty or genuineness of these works, but they all have, as well as the drawings be- longing to them, something in treatment and concep- tion, from which I can find no organic transition to the above-mentioned silver-point drawing of the Sposalizio and of the Coronation of Mary. Raphael's earliest Madonna picture for purposes of worship would therefore be the Madonna di Perugia, which is painted in a-free, vigorous manner, and is full of character. It takes precedence of the Florentine Madonnas, among which the Madonna del Gran' Duca passes for the earliest. To *As Morelli lias plausibly demonstrated, these may be the work of Perugino as well as the Baptism cf Christ at the Belvedere in Vienna and the Frankfort drawing lelonging to it. If we give back to Perugino a number of these works which have been ascribed to Raphael we gain a better opinion of him in his later years. I no longer believe these things to be the fruit of Raphael's early labors, 168 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. be sure, Vasari does not mention her, nor does she bear Raphael's name, and the Florentine sketch is only a forgery ; but her credentials are in her face, and such soul-felt, soul-winning gentleness only Ra- phael could have represented. Read in Vischer's novel * the thrilling passage in the diary which describes the tranquillizing effect of this picture on a man who stood before it racked with the most con- flicting emotions. And this effect it must ever have, although injured by time, accident, and unfortunate restorations. The Munich Madonna from the Casa Tempi is better preserved; it has more freshness, life, and movement, but yet lacks the touching, sympathetic beauty which lies like a soft haze over the Madonna del Gran' Duca. The rest of Raphael's Florentine Madonnas must be tested by this hidden power of attraction. They do not possess it in equal strength ; and without wishing to contend with those who still cling to this idea, see in them some trace of the style of an older master; espe- cially with regard to the Coronation of the Virgin in the Vatican and the three Predeilas has this conviction grown upon me. In the Madonna di Terranuova I do not deny the beauty of the counte- nance of Mary anil of the three children; let them be painted by whom they may, the panel belongs to the most glorious possessions of the Berlin Gallery; but I no longer find any sufficient reason for believing that Raphael directed the brush. It has taken years of observation to bring me to this conclusion. To be sure, it is only a matter of personal conviction, since I must oppose, without proof, those who judge differently; the tablets bear no inscription, nor are the pictures anywhere mentioned. If Raphael painted them, it must have been under circumstances which none of the docu- ments remaining, help us to understand. All these things will be enlarged upon in my forthcoming "Ausfuhrungeii." *" Audi Kiner," II. p. 256. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 169 some are almost wholly devoid of it, as, for instance, the one now in Munich, the Madonna Canigiani, and even the renowned La belle Jardiniere (Paris), whilst in the Belvedere Madonna at Vienna this ele- ment is much stronger than the engravings and pho- tographs would lead us to suspect. Yet no one of them convinces us that Raphael executed the picture throughout with that equal care and interest which his works of the highest rank reveal, or that he painted it for its own sake as the most eloquent expression of his feelings. One of Raphael's letters proves that in his Florentine days he composed pictures for a defi- nite price to be exported to France ; perhaps, even at that time with assistants, upon whom the less im- portant parts of the work devolved.* The Madonna in Vienna, more than any other, shows the inequality in Raphael's work, for, whilst the drooping counte- nance and naked foot are created with masterly ease, the hand in the drawing as well as in the painting shows inferior treatment; on the contrary, in the Canigiani and the Belle Jardiniere the feet are neglected-! If Vasari tells the truth, Raphael's leaving a Madonna to be finished by one of his friends when he departed for Rome likewise shows * Almost all those who of late have written of Raphael, in their criticism of individual works, point to this cooperative__labor. Especially for a number of Madonnas it would seem that Raphael only prepared the drawings. I refer to the " Ausfuhrungen." t Notice in the Entombment how various was the treatment of the feet. 170 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. how little lie concerned himself about this kind of painting. Without help he seems to have executed the work which, under the title the Madonna with the Goldfinch, is still in Florence, and is the only one of these productions which Vasari criticises. The Virgin has a supreme motherliness, and her exquisite face is painted with indescribable care. We might call this Madonna, the Madonna del Gran' Duca, and the della Sedia, the queens of Flo- rence, for there are but few streets in that city where copies of them do not look out upon us from some window. The Madrid Madonna with the Lamb, which Raphael painted in imitation of Leonardo, and the unfinished del Baldacchino (which is so much after the manner of Fra Bartolommeo that one is continually tempted to ascribe it to him) are less dear to us. It would seem as if Raphael's final establishment in Rome produced a change in the Madonna paint- ings. The Virgin with the Diadem, with Roman ruins in the background, is a significant proof of this. To my feeling, the most beautiful thing in it is the child asleep with his little arm under his head, from which the Virgin, kneeling in front, has raised the veil-like covering. By some critics the awe- struck adoring boy John is supposed to be the work of another hand. About this time the Madonna di Loretto (in Vasari's time in Sta. Maria del Popolo) also originated, which has been missing since the wars of the first French Republic and is now known THE SISTINE MADONNA. 171 only through copies. Her face, and indeed hef whole attitude, Raphael Isnt later to the allegorical goddess of Justice on the ceiling of the Camera della Segnatura. The last in the series of these first Roman Madonnas is that of Foligno, at first in Ara Coeli in Rome (the primitive church which it is said will soon disappear to make place for the monument to Victor Emanuel), then in Foligno, afterwards in Paris, and to-day in the Vatican. Herder saw it in Foligno in 1788. He writes to his wife : " We have seen a Raphael much more beautiful than that in Loretto. Mary with her child upon the clouds ; the child has risen from her lap and is about to step with one little foot upon the clouds. Below an excellent John the Baptist, a man who has a world in himself. A glorious piece, but alas injured ; the nuns are allowing it to be ruined." * I can agree with Herder only so far as regards the figure below, for the Madonna strikes me as having a certain conscious elegance which is peculiar also to other Madonnas of this first Roman period. Whoever gave the order for this painting may possibly have commanded a Queen of Heaven. Princely and aristocratic patrons demanded another style of Madonna than the common citizen. In this her majesty the Madonna is the loveliest image of condescension. But she almost suffers from contrast with the figure kneeling at her right with clasped * Briefwechsel, p. 80. 172 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. hands and uplifted eyes, adoring her, evidently the man who ordered the picture, and one of /the finest portraits Raphael ever painted. Above this production, which was of an unes- sential nature, three Madonnas only rise superior : the one with the Fish, the della Sedia, and the Sis- tine ; and the last again is so far above the two first that if these and all the other Madonnas were laid in one scale and the Sistine in the other, she would far outweigh the whole. These three works belong to the times of Leo X. The Madonna with the Fish, a composition with several figures, bears the semblance only of a legen- dary occurrence. The Virgin in the centre sits facing vis upon a throne to which a single step leads up. She holds the child toward the right with both hands, and lifted free above her. At the left, young Tobias is approaching under the guidance of the angel Raphael. Tobias, still almost a boy, with light curls falling over his shoulders, bends his knee before the throne, and offers the fish (which in its modest size does not correspond to the Old Testa- ment story), while the angel, although somewhat taller than Tobias, is also in the bloom of early youth, and, like him, is bowing as if to inspire his protege with courage, and recommend him to the Madonna. The Christ child stretches out his little hand eagerly, as if he wanted the fish, or as children snatch a plaything, yet at the same time reaching backward lays the other hand into a large, open book, THE SISTIXE MADONNA. 173 which St. Jerome, who stands upon this side close to the Madonna, holds in front of him as if he were reading it. The meaning is perfectly clear. Jerome was reading aloud to Mary and the child, when Ra- phael with Tobias appears and interrupts him. AVhile both are now rendering homage to the Christ, the Saviour with royal courtesy indicates to the Saint that the presence of Tobias is only a pass- ing interruption, and that the reading will later be continued. In this sense the picture has been inter- preted. AVe have a small literature devoted to this interpretation of it.* I will not say that the picture, just as it stands, does not contain and exhibit all this ; on the con- trary, it is such a vivid and simple representation that the scene can be explained in no other way- Nevertheless, it is quite plain that Raphael did not at first propose so much, nor is there anything in the painting to warrant us, as many believe, in assuming that Raphael was ordered to paint just this occur- rence, but it appears that in the process of the work, and on placing the figures together the action grew out of it. The sketch for it shows the development. This gives us the early condition of the composition in which the child has quite a different position, while the archangel Raphael and Tobias are made much more conspicuous than in the painting. It is obvious that Raphael had decided in the beginning * " Ausfuhrungen." 174 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. to make these figures the prominent ones, since in the first sketch Jerome is almost a mere ornamental figure. It has been suggested that Raphael had re- ceived the commission to symbolize in this picture the admission of the book of Tobias into the ranks of the canonical works. The sketch proves how little this was intended. The painting as it stands in Madrid corresponds, they say, to the beauty and soft flow of the composition, in which dwells a peculiar power to captivate the imagin- ation of the beholder, and to leave behind a clear re- membrance of it. The circular form of the panel upon which the Madonna della Sedia is painted is so admirably suited to the look of the mother, sitting on a low seat with the two children, that any other form for it is scarcely conceivable. The legend of Raphael's having painted it on the bottom of a wine cask, because the sight of the woman attracted him as he was passing by, is found- ed on this perception. And how vastly, indeed, the circular form enhances the expression of the picture ! Mary, with one arm laid over her child, seems to wish to cover and encircle him with her whole body. This gentle bending forward in which the head has part, lends to her with all her quietness a kind of action ; all that maternal love is capable of bestowing seems to emanate from her. She looks askance, as if she would inquire if she had done enough for the child THE SISTINE MADONNA. 175 whose face glows with the happy security it thus feels enclosed in its mother's arms. His little legs are stretched toward us, while with the toes of one foot he is playing, as children do, with the heel of the other, and he strains his eyes wide open as if seek- ing for the dreams out of which he has just awak- ened.* The little John, with his tiny hand raised in prayer, is close beside him. but still somewhat in the background. Mary has been painted by Raphael in different degrees of earthly rank ; the Madonna della Sedia approaches the aristocratic, but only in outward show, for the poorest mother might sit there as she does. Gold and variegated colors have been used without stint. More of a gay holiday splendor has been lent to this picture than to any other that I know by Raphael. The dress of the mother is light blue; the mantle which she has drawn about her shoulders is green, with red and willow-green stripes and gold embroidered border ; her sleeves are red, faced with gold at the wrists. A grayish brown veil with reddish brown stripes is wound about her hair ; the little dress of the child is orange-colored, and the * The picture as first conceived was square, in a little scrawled pen-and-ink drawing ; we have it so before us. Raphael made this design on the same sheet with a sketch for the Madonna Alba, which, however, he probably never executed himself. In the Madonna of the Dei Family the Christ-child has the big toe of his foot in his hand. This characteristic touch as regards Raphael's right of ownership in the picture is decisive. Fra Bar- tolommeo could scarcely have painted it, however much the whole panel in detail resembles his work. 176 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. back of the chair red velvet. The golden lines radi- ating from the halo around the head of the child form a cross, and over the mother's and John's float light golden rings. All the tones are flower-like and clear. From the description one would suppose that the picture would make a confused impression, or, at least, that the painting must have been planned sim- ply with a view to effects of color. But outline and modelling have been quite as important factors as the coloring, and we believe that we see only the glorified representation of pure nature. To the co- operation of incalculable artistic resources is to be ascribed the effect of this work, which no one of the engravers, who have exerted themselves to reproduce it, have been able to lend to their plates. Only Boucher-Desnoyers has approached it, and he only distantly, in the most modest of all engravings, working after Raphael under the advantages of the Musee Napoleon. He, however, has really ap- proached it, whilst neither Schiifer, who gives the effect of color, nor Mandel, who strove to represent the modelling, have produced anything at all satis- factory when compared with the painting. A har- monious glow irradiates it, which, partaking of a spirit- ual, as well as a material nature, constitutes the peculiarity of this work, and defies all attempts at reproduction. Pictorial art has produced few such works which actually in their beauty exceed nature herself, who does not seem to wish to unite so many advantages in one person or place. THE SISTIXE MADONNA. 177 The efforts of the Florentine school to make their ideal forms appear credible even to the point of in- troducing a kind of portraiture, reached a climax in the Madonna della Sedia. We suppose that some particular individual has been idealized in her. In every detail of the picture Raphael betrays such close observation of nature that it is not easy to be- lieve it to be the pure product of artistic imagination. Herein it surpasses all the Madonnas except the Sistine. It is astounding if in fancy we place the two pictures side by side to observe what different ideas Raphael wished to embody in them, and what means he has used to attain his aim. If Raphael in the Madonna della Sedia has raised the earthly to divine purity, in the Sistine he has attempted to draw down the godlike into earthly form. Every one feels before the picture that such a woman walks only on the clouds. This work, as all the world knows, is the pride of Dresden, and it is the only one of all Raphael's Madonnas which has found a place fully corresponding to its worth, as is here the case in Semper's beautiful museum. In entering upon a consideration of the details of the work we ask, first, how is Mary moving forward on the white clouds which vanish in the distance ? She does not touch them, but yet is moving majesti- cally upon them. Raphael has painted what seem- ingly cannot be represented : floating and at the same time walking upon something which, although having no substance or firmness, still forms a path. 178 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. That Mary is borne along through the air the soft curve of the expanded veil shows ; but we see from the form of the clouds beneath that her feet touch them. I have referred above to the means Raphael uses to prevent Mary's dress from exciting the slightest attention, since compared with the magnifi- cent garb of the saints on the right and left, her simple drapery passes unnoticed. In like manner he enhances the effect of Mary's moving downward on the clouds by giving to her figure by con- trast an air of supreme ease and grace. St. Sixtus gazing up at her on the left, as well as St. Barbara looking downward on the right, are also in the clouds ; not, however, standing upon them but amid them, for their feet and the lower part of their heavy regal dresses have sunk into them, as if, though like Mary inhabitants of heaven, they were formed of weightier and more earthly stuff. If we pursue this contrast further we shall see how care- fully it is carried out. With what stateliness Sixtus moves in his heavy pontifical mantle ; with one hand toward his breast, expressive of loyalty and devotion to the service of Mary, with the other he points to the crown resting upon the threshold be- low, which finishes the picture. This mighty cross- beam signifies the earth, to which Mary is on the point of descending, whilst the two angels in front herald her approach. Having already reached the destined spot, they placidly await her coming. Lean- ing upon their doubled up and outspread little arms. THE SISTIXE MADONNA. 179 they have made themselves at home. They are Mary's vanguard, while Sixtus and Barbara have been allowed to mount up some steps higher, even into the clouds, to receive the Queen of Heaven. St. Barbara looks down upon the human race wait- ing unseen in the depth below and seems to commend them to the protection of the heavenly queen. Mary herself standing erect floats toward us with her eyes wide open and yet as if she did not know that the eyes of the whole human family were directed to her. She is looking straight before her, but as if her glance reverted into her own soul, and in a still higher measure is this marvel- lous introversion peculiar to the child. It seems as if he were reading in the pictures which filled the clear air his future fate and reflecting upon the sufferings which, for him, still lay far in the dis- tance, as if they were already past. Not like the Christ-child of the Madonna della Sedia, before whom dreams of the preceding night still seem to hover, but filled with foreglimpses of an unavoid- able and fateful future, and with the resolve to front what lies before him. The child sits there as if he did not burden the mother, although in size he is much beyond a mere infant. As he lays his hand on the foot of the crossed leg, he seems to have almost the deportment of a thoughtful man. Here, also, Raphael has been able to heighten this impression by contrast ; the two angels below re- present the thoughtless contentment of simple hu- 180 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. man childhood. They do nothing and as yet know nothing of past or future, and flutter in the sun- shine of existence showing by smiles or tears their momentary experience, while on the brow of the Christ-child seems to dwell the contemplation of aeons. The picture went as an altar-piece to Piacenza ; therefore in Rome it probably was seen only by those who accidentally caught sight of it in Raphael's atel- ier. One imagines there must have been in Rome a legend concerning the origin and disappearance of this picture, and in Piacenza it was treasured as the purest, costliest pearl of Italian art, drawing men thither. Only after it came to Dresden, in the middle of the last century, did it begin to assume its rank, and even here at first amid the opposition of a powerful party educated in Netherland art. Men pronounced the Christ-child to be of an ordi- nary type, and said the angels below were painted by a scholar. Even as late as our century they ven- tured to assert that possibly the whole picture was a creation of Timoteo della Vite. We could not believe these things did we not possess written proof. To-day nobody stops before the painting without being touched to the heart by its wondrous beauty. We see that mankind must be educated to the understanding and enjoyment of the greatest things. Could a record be made of the feeling awakened and expressed by those who have stood before this Madonna, we should see how sincerely individuals of THE SISTINE MADONNA. 181 entirely different natures agree in their admiration of it. Curiously enough, as with the Cartoons for the Tapestries, this instinctive susceptibility to its merit is chiefly found among the Protestants, who, because the legend of Mary is foreign to the Gospels, and because they have none of the feeling for her which prevails in the Catholic church, admire the work simply for its beauty. Raphael, while furnishing a picture for a shrine, really created something which appeals to every man. The mothers of those whom we honor seem to us specially worthy of reverence ; and whatever the mother of Christ may have been, she stands on a height beside him, clothed with a majesty which we, too, acknowledge. Raphael's Madonnas have the peculiarity that they are not distinctively national. They are not Italians whom he paints,, but women raised above what is national. Leonar- do's, Correggio's, Titian's, Murillo's, and Rubens* Madonnas are all in some respects affected by their masters' nationality ; a faint suggestion of Italian or Spanish or Flemish nature pervades their forms- Raphael alone could give to his Madonnas that uni- versal human loveliness and that beauty which is a possession common to the European nations com- pared with other races. His Sistine Madonna soars, above us as our ideal of womanly beauty ; and yet r strange to say, despite this universality, she gives to- each individual the impression that, owing to some special affinity, he has the privilege of wholly under- 182 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. standing her. Shakespeare's and Goethe's feminine creations inspire the same feeling. It is inconceivable that anybody exists to-day who has not had the Sistine Madonna before his eyes in some form or other, and in whom the sight has not awakened a sense of what many have felt and expressed, but Goethe alone has been able to designate rightly, with the words " das Ewig- weibliche.* * The Sistine Madonna belongs to the year 1517. No studies for it are extant. Hence the legend that Raphael painted it very rapidly, and without making previous studies. Unlike his other works, it is done on canvas. Ruinohr attached to it the conjecture that it was intended to serve as a banner for a procession. Hence again the modern legend that it actually was painted for this purpose. Crowe .and Cavalcaselle, on quite different evidence, give this an earlier origin. My reasons for not entertaining this opinion I shall give in my " Ausfiihrungen." The Sistine is the last Madonna which, Raphael executed without foreign aid. The great Madonna of the Louvre, perhaps, chronologically considered, was the last one; but this was executed by Giulio Romano. There are beautiful draw- ings for this Louvre Madonna preserved, which testify to the love with which Raphael began the work : three studies after nature for the Madonna herself; one especially (which reminds us of the model which served for the Farnesina) a soft red chalk drawing of the greatest charm, a study which shows the figure in all its tender out- lines, with only the indispensable covering, while another sketch gives the full drapery folds which envelop her in the painting. It is possible that Raphael did the Sistine Madonna from this same model, and that her face may have retained a glimmer of resem- blance. In the Pitti Palace is a female portrait (painted by one of the later Bolognese artists) which because of a certain artificial resemblance to the Sistine, has been imagined to be a work by Raphael, in fact a likeness of his innamorata. But taking the drawings together, in which 1 think I recognize the same models which are distinguished by the extraordinary pains Raphael took to reproduce all the lineaments of the countenance, the result may have been a face which in imagination becomes the Sistine Madonna, but yet is in, no wise related to the portrait in the Pitti Palace. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 183 Only one engraver has succeeded in approaching the painting, Friedrich Miiller, whose work is es- teemed the best that modern skill in engraving has produced. All Raphael's works are youthful works. After finishing the Sistine Madonna he lived only three years. At thirty-five years of age (and he did not survive much beyond this) the largest portion of human life is often still in the future. The events of each day continue to surprise us, and to seem like adven- tures. Raphael was full of these fresh hopes and anticipations when a cruel fate snatched him away. His last works betray the same youthful exhilaration in labor as his first. His studies from nature made at this time have a freshness and grace which, re- garded as personal manifestations of his genius, are as valuable as his paintings. He was still in process of development. If we compare his last studies from nature with those of Michael Angelo, we shall see how carefully and objectively the latter searched out the construc- tion of the human frame, while Raphael was still satisfied with the appearances which accidentally offered themselves. He did not wish to investigate as a scholar, but as an artist to reproduce what seemed to him beautiful. What in our later years we call illusions, still enchanted him. The easy untrammeled life at the court of the pope wore for him to the last a romantic glamour, and the admira- 184 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. tion of those who only meant to flatter, sounded sweet in his ears, even while he saw through it. Everything continued to serve him ; with the gospel of defeat his soul was still unacquainted. May we, notwithstanding, speak of thoughts which must have disturbed him, if he had allowed himself to dwell upon them, and to indicate the direction which they took ; things which later perhaps would have proved a burden to him ? Raphael had finally attained a reputation which must have forced him to bring his productions as a whole into comparison with those of Michael Angelo. If in the privacy of his own heart he adjusted the scales, what was his estimate of himself? Often early in life comes the question, what will be said by coming generations, and on what will they form their judgment ? * Raphael was young. He was rich. lie was surrounded by scholars and people who worked for him. He was one of the highest officials of the pai)al court. He had built himself a palace, and the choice stood open between a mar- riage with the niece of one of the most powerful car- dinals, or, if Vasari and others have rightfully in- formed us, of becoming himself a cardinal. En- dowed seemingly with inexhaustible vital power, he enjoyed and made others enjoy life with him. But if others might share these riches, one thing was his alone, his fame. And upon what did this rest? He must have said to himself that his first paint- * ef. (ioeihu'o " Selbstbekenntnisse." THE SISTINE MADONNA. 185 ing of mark was hidden from sight in Citta di Cas- tello, that the Entombment, having been painted for a side chapel in the Cathedral at Perugia, was al- most equally withdrawn from the public view, also that the Camera della Segnatura, together with the rest of the Vatican chambers, upon whose walls he had expended so much intellectual power, was one of the countless rooms in the great palace which no one was allowed to enter, save the popes and their immediate followers. Then, too, the drawings for the Tapestries had disappeared, but even the Tapes- tries themselves, if he could hardly have considered them his work had they been executed in Rome by his own scholars, how much less then when wrought out by Netherland workmen, who exercised their choice in the colors. How vastly the work done by others after his designs differed from his own, Raphael knew only too well. And now these Tapes- tries were only to be seen on high festival days in the Sistine Chapel. It must have been a sad day for Raphael when he took farewell for ever of these drawings, and a still sadder one when he saw them again in their new form. And, in addition to this, he must often have been disturbed, if a suggestion arose within him of the possible immortality of his works by considering how often his talents were applied in the service of the court to useless and frivolous ends, and how at the command of the powerful, for whose favor he had ever to struggle like the rest of the pope's 186 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. retinue, he was forced to add or take away, accord- ing to their humor, until the harmony of his own design was lost. Neither Leonardo, nor as has been already said, Michael Angelo would have yielded. Would these great masters have striven with such painstaking care to cover with glorious productions the dark window-walls of the Vatican Stanze, where the eyes are so blinded by the strong light streaming in as scarcely to be able to distinguish the paintings? Would they have devoted their labor to ante-rooms and passages, or to such a room as that in which the Incendio is painted ? And, farther, Raphael must now say to himself that, without a single protest, his last great Madonna, the Sistine, had gone to Piacenza ! To the Roman people there only remained visible the Sibyls and Prophets in Sta. Maria della Pace, and the Isaiah in San Agostino. Visible, too, were the Loggie of the Farnesina, would one take the trouble to go and look at them ? On the other hand, it was doubtful if the Madonna di Foligno in Ara Coeli, like that of Loretto and the portrait of Pope Julius II. in Sta. Maria del Popolo, were ever uncovered, except on high feast days. But these pictures came less into consideration ; the renown of a master was based upon his frescoes. It was to the Prophets and Sibyls that Raphael owed the opinion of the general pub- lic, which the pope himself repeated : that Raphael had passed from an imitation of Perugino to that of Michael Angelo. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 187 On the contrary, how fate had favored Michael Angelo ! Many of his works, indeed had disap- peared into foreign lands, but the Pieta, on which rested his fame in Rome, was as visible in St. Peter's as if it were on the open piazza, while his David stood in Florence, before the door of the palace. Everyone knew even of his destroyed works. The cartoon of the Soldiers Bathing, though it per- ished unexecuted, and his statue of Julius II. in Bologna, though thrown down and melted, had yet attracted the eyes of all Italy. The miraculous work of the Sistine Chapel was visible to the people of Rome, and to every one who reached the city. Leo X. might keep Michael Angelo as far from Rome as he chose ; step by step he steadily moved forward, every work a fresh manifestation of his presence in the world. And even if the Sposalizio and the Entombment had stood before the eyes of men, and the Camera della Segnatura been a public hall, and the Cartoons for the Tapestries been visible like the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, who, then, Raphael must have asked himself, was there in Rome capable of sitting in judgment upon them ? Michael Angelo had not for a long time seen any of Raphael's works. He had resigned himself to thinking of Rome as a lost post. We have some of the letters in which are described to him Raphael's latest achievements: his Roman friends must have imagined it would please him to hear Raphael dis- 188 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. paraged. * And, again, how hated Michael Angelo was in Rome by those who, without doubt, passed for Raphael's friends, the biography of Michael Angelo, found among Giovio's papers, shows ; it seems to have been written immediately after Leo X.'s death, and from an ill-concealed feeling of bit- ter aversion. Michael Angelo being absent, and the only per- son beside him who could come in question, Sebas- tian del Piombo, having equally turned aside from Raphael, what men in Rome were capable of judg- ing his work?f Bramante was dead. He would not have allowed Raphael to expend so much strength on things of no importance. Two men might perhaps have supplied Bramante's place, Giuliaiio da San Gallo and Fra Giocoiido, both of whom undertook, beside Raphael, the direction of the building of St. Peter's. But they, too, had long been gone. Giuliano, who stood on the side of Michael Angelo, soon left Rome. In a letter to his uncle, Raphael speaks of Fra Giocondo in terms of reverence and love. To him he was indebted for what Bramante had not been able to give, a direction toward scientific attainment, a desire to * In Jan. 1518, they write Michael Angelo a description of the Far- nesiiia (Gotti II. 55) : " chosa vituperosa a un, gran maestro, peggio che 1'ultima stanza del palazzo." Even in that day men distin- guished quite clearly Raphael's work from that of his scholars, and they go on to give the different opinions entertained about Raphael's work. Michael Angelo took no part in the discussion. L. M. f Concerning Sebastian's letters to Michael Angelo, vide L. M. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 189 study Vitruvius, a reverence for the antique, and an enthusiasm for the preservation of its re- mains. But Fra Giocondo was very old, and worked by the side of Raphael only a short time, who afterwards directed alone the building of St. Peter's. Early in the days of Leo X., Leonardo had also started for Rome, thinking perhaps that his oppor- tunity had come, but he left soon again to go to France, whence he never returned. This all-com- prehensive genius constantly enlarges before our eyes. AVhy was it that he who was so well acquainted with everything which referred to architecture was not called in Bramante's stead, or at least after Fra Giocondo' s death, employed on the work of building St. Peter's? Like Bramante, Leonardo needed to have young people about him. He distributed life and thought. He was indefatigable. But possibly Raphael stood for too much in himself at that time to be subordinated to a man even of the highest talents. I am not aware that Raphael's name is mentioned in Leonardo's notes. At the time he made the attempt to establish himself in Rome, he was already too old. Fra Bartolomnieo, too, who appeared there under the new pope, was likewise unsuccessful. Raphael had at one time been under his influence in Flo- rence. He could now confide to his old teacher in how far it seemed to him he had succeeded or failed in his works, and Bartolomnieo could point to what 190 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. pleased him, or indicate what came .short of his ideas.* And now when Fra Bartolommeo had departed, there remained to Raphael only his admirers and scholars. Of the latter, however high he may have ranked some of them, there was no one who was in any sense his peer either in intellect or capacity. Giulio Romano, his favorite pupil, to whom he be- queathed his atelier, had a decorative talent ; in his latter days, after Raphael's death, he devoted him- self to the open imitation of Michael Angelo. I know of nothing by Giulio's hand which could awaken in me the faintest echo of the feelings Raphael's works inspire. Was not Raphael as con- scious of his pupil's limitations as we are? And yet he left to him the completion of much of his work, and made him the executor of his last will and testament in artistic matters I Vasari tells us of some fifty other painters who formed his train when he went to the Vatican, and adds : " Tutti valeati e buoni." That the fifty considered them- selves very capable artists, I believe ; but what did Raphael think of them secretly? Must he not have known the hidden truth ? Vasari boasts that all Raphael's scholars later secured good positions in life. Even in Raphael's day, this was the one great test of ability. Yet why, if there * I have seen again in the TTfflzi at Florence the Madonna da I'escia; it is by Raphael; hut yet so like Fra Bartolommeo's work that one might suppose he had directed Kapliael's hand. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 191 were so many gifted men, and they loved him so dearly, how did it happen that there was not one out of this great circle to rise up in Raphael's lifetime and demand that nobler opportunities should be given him to reveal his genius, and great monu- mental commissions be awarded him to be carried out before the eyes of all Rome ? Scholars .and admirers are often exceedingly modest in demand- ing anything for their master, and I do not mean to suggest that there was any lack of good intention. But I also suspect Raphael was wise enough to hide what he may inwardly have thought of all this love, and that he understood perfectly the real aim of so much demonstration. From the few letters, which remain from Raphael's hand, the cool, clear, worldly wisdom shines forth, which is the inheri- tance of all Italians, and the absence of sentimen- tality about mine and thine. But at the same time the overflowing wealth of his own genius must have made him indulgent towards the hard-working medi- ocrity which he saw toiling around him, and so al- lowed his scholars to pass for his colleagues, will- ingly giving them the places they claimed on the roll of his fame. And I repeat it is inconceivable to me that Raphael could have been deceived in regard to the scope of the talent of those about him. On the ceiling of the Camera della Segnatura are two representations : the Judgment of Marsyas and the figure of Astronomy, both unquestionably after Raphael's drawings, but both, to speak plainly, 192 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. badly painted. Did not Raphael see this? Or would he not see it ? The only and very innocent revenge which he practised was this : that, having once committed the work to an assistant, he then allowed him to finish it entirely alone, without adding a single stroke.* It remains for us now to review his admirers, and to ask how far they were able to afford him the rights of an intelligent criticism. There probably were among them many distinguished men, whose recognition he held to be of some worth. Amateurs who have good eyes always judge more agreeably for a master, and in fact their criticisms are more trust- worthy than those of his colleagues in the business, which he cannot fail to see have a one-sided tone. Raphael seems to have had none of that powerful (one might say, brutal) consciousness of his own worth which filled and sustained Michael Angelo, but, like nature herself, he seems to have strewn the path over which he sped with flowers and fruits, without a thought or care as to who was coming after to enjoy them. We see what Goethe asserts to be the duty of man ; it is to satisfy the demands of the day. Raphael fulfilled this. Perhaps, like Goethe, he inspired every one with the sweet feeling of being *In this way I explain the fact that some of his later works for which we have drawings and sketches were not as well executed as if done by his own hand, for his scholars were unable to do jus- lice to the finer or more subtle parts of the composition which observation also applies to the later frescoes of the Vatican cham- bers. I shall discuss special cases in the " Ausfiihrungen." THE SISTINE MADONNA. 193 in the world only for him, and found his own hap- piness in satisfying others. If one wanted any- thing of him, he laid aside whatever he was en- gaged upon, although knowing full well that his own work was of more importance ; he yielded to the friendly impulses of his nature, which it gave him joy to gratify. One thing, however, even such a gloriously equipped nature can never have learned : to take the best spirits of the second rank for fully endowed men, fit for the highest. Who that has once had intercourse with men of the first rank can fail to hold them, and the measure of what they de- manded in deathless remembrance? In the lists of his admirers, we must give the first places to Leo X. and his cousin, Giulio de' Medici. Justly considered, however, none are so indebted to Raphael as the pope and the cardinal. From the portrait in the Pitti Palace, the intellect and char- acter of these men speak out convincingly. No one that has seen them as they stand there would attribute to them any littleness. In this portrait, Raphael has done more for his patron than the most brilliant historian could have done. Especially since a new position has been given it, the painting produces an indescribably fine effect. It would seem to be Raphael's highest achievement in this direction, and no historical portrait in any age has ever rivaled it. Vasari's praise is in this case fully justified. If one wishes to know how the pope looked in reality, one must see the colossal statue of 194 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. him which now stands in Ara Caeli ; a puffy, swollen face with flabby features and morose expression. Thus Leo probably looked when he happened to give the sculptor a short sitting. Rumohr finds fault with the pope for not having occupied Raphael with works more worthy of his genius. He cites for instance the Loggie, which certainly, for a man like Raphael, was mere trifling. But Raphael did very little of the painting himself ; having made the drawings, he divided the exe- cution of them among his scholars. We must, how- ever, ask to-day, how it was possible that so few in Rome at that time recognized the inestimable value of the compositions for the Tapestries. A pope is conceivable who would have laid his hands upon these creations, and obliged Raphael to execute them himself in the chapel. Perhaps Julius II. might have been the man to command this. And just here the retribution came for the exile of Michael Angelo. He, if he had seen the Cartoons, might perhaps have proved a second time that he was more capable than all the others of appreciating Raphael. The cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who in the por- trait in the Pitti Palace is visible beside and a little behind the pope, found the position of ruler hard enough when he came into power. The fates were indeed unpropitious during the twenty years in which he as Clement VII., to his own and Rome's disgrace, was forced to be pope. To be sure, he gave Michael THE SISTINE MADONNA. 195 Angelo and Benvenuto Cellini orders, but the man of his choice was Bandinelli. This wretched being was his tool, and what remains to be seen of his work in Florence to-day is anything but an honor to Clement. It was not given to either of the two Medici to perceive what an artist was capable of, or to understand what species of work would call forth his best talent. On a higher plane than they, we see the banker of the popes, the splendor-loving Agostino Chigi. For him Raphael was always at work, and in his last days to such an extent that Chigi alone would have mo- nopolized his time. Bankers, if they are to rise higher, must be men of energy and enlarged views. Through the means at their command, it is in their power to make a place for themselves in the history of art, and excel- lent connoisseurs and collectors have arisen among them ; how high we should place Chigi among them is not clear. That is to say, we require positive proof as to whether love of splendor, vanity, or a true comprehension of art led him to give the com- missions. The Cardinal Bibbiena, too (whose niece Maria, Raphael was to marry, and at whose order he painted one of the Vatican rooms), was of those who knew something of such matters. From the palace of the Medici, Bibbiena was transferred to Leo's court, and there rose to be cardinal. A par- venu, but clever like Giovio and Bembo, he still 196 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. certainly could not have been a person for whose judgment Raphael would care. There are people who, while young, associate with others simply be- cause they are amusing, full of knowledge, useful, and always at hand, and who, rising step by step, find themselves at last in the company of the greatest, so that a glimmer of grandeur falls upon them. Bib- biena's portrait in the Pitti Palace reveals little, not even how much of it Raphael painted. The most spiritual of all the cardinal's supposed portraits, is the one in Madrid which I know to be painted by Raphael, and which I mention here because it has sometimes been said to be Bibbiena's ; but it is too spiritual for him and also too young. To the Cardi- nal Bibbiena in France, when he was there in the service of the pope, Raphael sent the picture of Giovanna of Aragon, and the character of the work, which is renowned far beyond its worth, does not lead us to imagine the cardinal to have been an authority Raphael could have feared. We know positively that he neither made the drawings for it nor did he paint it with his own hand. The most renowned of Raphael's friends is the Count Castiglione, the author of the " Cortigiano " and a variety of poems and letters, most of them to our modern taste meaningless productions. From passages in his letters and the elegy upon Raphael's death, we see that Castiglione was es- pecially attached to him. We have a letter of THE SISTINE MADONNA. 197 Raphael's to him in which he thanks the count for the friendly things he has said about the Galatea.* With Bembo, too, and Ariosto, Raphael may have had friendly relations. Beyond doubt they both had more or less intercourse with him. But of what nature was it ? At court men are acquainted and stand on a friendly footing : many of the clergy, poets, and learned men who surrounded Leo, may, therefore, have counted themselves among Raphael's special acquaintances. Added to these were princes,, noblemen, and artists. Many names could here be brought together, if we mentioned only those scat- tered about in Vasari's book, nobles of every degree for whom Raphael painted, built, and made sketches, who were very dear to him, who were his " amici " and patrons. But under whatever high- * The original letter is no longer preserved, but it may be genu- ine. Raphael explains that, inasmuch as it is not usual for any one woman to unite in herself all the traits ot beauty, lie makes a "certain ideal " serve him, formed out of his recollections ol many beautiful women, and this he represents. This is an explana- tion which coincides with the academic notion current among the artists of that day. It is not true of Raphael's practice in the last years of his life, for at the time when he painted the Farnesina, he made one particular woman his model in figure and face. For this- very reason, and perhaps because something lay at the bottom of the count's questions, Raphael in his reply took refuge in a common aesthetic observation. The more experience I have gained the more I have hesitated to use private letters as historical material. As a rule one is ignorant of the principal thing dwelt upon in let- ters. The plan p.lli-.ded to lor St. Peter's in this letter is probably not the first but the second (cf. Geymiiller). For the date of the letter this is important. Further treatment in the " Ausfiihr- ungen." 198 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. sounding names or titles, they could not have passed with Raphael for any more than every man was worth in his place. From what is handed down we only gather that they had in some way connec- tion or association with him. One of them who was trying at that time to force his way to the Medici would be of more importance than all the rest put together, could we prove any tie between him and Raphael : Machiavelli, who under Leo X. conceived a united and self-govern- ing Italy. Thoughts akin to the preceding must have arisen in Raphael's mind on dark days when he took ac- count of how he stood and what material in the way of men he had about him. It seems to have teen only at rare intervals, however, that thoughts of this kind came to him. Raphael struggled forward under the pressure of increasing work. He was just at the age when everything in life seemed only like the opening overture and the entire drama with its decisive action lay in the future. What works he cherished, yet unborn, in his imagination ! What opulence of ideas encircled him in Rome, unceasing- ly reinf orced from all sides ! Fresh questions of the most important kind were constantly finding decision there. No other spot on earth could have given Raphael such a field of activity as he found in Rome ; the rank, the power, the favor, and withal the independence. No other city offered him ac- quaintance with the antique. The elements of THE SISTIXE MADONNA. 199 ancient culture, which in ever-increasing fullness were coining- to light, whose pre-eminent value every one felt, and in whose restoration every one wished to have a share, must have translated Raphael into a world in which he was compensated in the highest measure for all that life refused him or death de- prived him of. Borne held the foremost rank in the pursuit and magnificent achievement of learning, in which we assume Raphael to have shared. But more important yet than these two elements, which can be plainly designated, was a third, more general and less easily defined, although as surely existing as the first. The second decade of the Cinquecento, in which Leo's pontificate fell, was widely distinguished from the first in which Julius II. held sway. The characteristic of those first ten years is that the men who by cooperation finally brought about a revolution, had not at that time any knowledge of each other, but independently were preparing themselves for the time to come. In this sense we may almost count the days of Julius II. as be- longing to the Quattrocento ; for, according to the standpoint we have chosen, they are the beginning of the new or the close of the old time. Under Julius II., however much French, Spanish, or German poli- tics might mingle in Italian matters, Italy was as it had ever been, only a portion of Europe by itself, where the potentates divided the peninsula, and left to themselves with their own forces, contended with 200 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. one another. In the other countries of Europe affairs were much the same, every nation being chiefly occupied with the troubles within its own borders. The last wars of Julius II. and of Leo X. have already other interests and wider scope. It is as if the nations began to have more enlarged aims, and their experiences to involve them in a common des- tiny. New factors became of value in the great game of human progress. The effort of the cities toward securing a separate national existence, which had no higher aim than the paltry gain or loss of the hour, was everywhere forced into the background by the thought of religious reform. The wisdom of the city politicians was at an end. Printed pamphlets now first began to exert an influence as a means of agitation. Characters who had found it impos- sible to obtain a hearing in the past now attempted to bring their influence to bear. Princes saw fresh opportunities to enlarge their pretensions, and Rome was the exchange where all this new stock was ne- gotiated. The meeting of Leo X. and Francis I. in Bologna in the year 1515, looked at in this light, was a congress before which the destiny of the nations, as a whole was brought under discussion.* But events in the political life of princes and cities furnish only dates for more important things ; * Raphael was at that time collecting material for his picture of the Coronation of Charlemas'ie in the Stan/a del' Incendio, where he represents the emperor in the ligure of Francis I. on whose head Leo X. is placing the imperial crown. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 201 far more important is the inward development of the men, who were at that period the special motors. Up to this time, Luther, Erasmus, Hutten, and all the others, who were directly under their influence, oper- ated within narrower circles ; these now enlarged and were divided and the necessity made itself felt of ad- dressing not merely their near friends, but the nations, as an audience, to whom they might direct their appeals. We may call the years of Leo the " Storm and Stress Period " of the Reformation. The views which in Rome under Julius II. were the property of a few privileged in- dividuals, among whom I number Raphael, under Leo X. passed over into the possession of the many. It is impossible to conceive that a man so sensitively organized as Raphael could fail to be stirred to the depths of his nature by this latest overflow of the spirit which regenerated all Europe. The trial of Reuchlin, which was fought out at this time, dis- closes to us with what freedom and yet uncertainty the highest questions, which in part lay outside the strife of parties, were discussed in Rome, where, as elsewhere, beside the interest taken in ecclesiastical matters, study of the ancient authors occupied the mind. These things were so completely intermingled that they could no longer be separated. This fusing of political, religious, and literary interests was the spiritual element which furthered Raphael's development. In view of such conditions, we feel certain that 202 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Raphael did not suffer for the want of con- genial society in Rome in the time of Leo X. The assumption is unnecessary that he was led by contact with the minds seething around him to enter himself into these agitations. Unfortu- nately, our authorities are so limited that, when we would speak definitely on this head, only a paltry amount of proof appears ; still we are not wholly without it. Raphael at intervals seems to have withdrawn entirely from intercourse with the court, and to have applied himself to his books ; and to such a degree that he was reputed melancholy, shutting himself up in his house, and was not to be seen when called upon. The letter of Calcagniiii's from which a passage was quoted above, contains an ac- count of the friendship Raphael cherished in his last years for an old philologist living in Rome. " Fabius of Ravenna," writes Calcagnini, " now ex- tremely aged, lives like one of the old stoics, and both as man and scholar, is equally worthy of vener- ation. The monthly allowance granted him by the pope, he gives to his friends and relatives. Ill, and eighty years of age, he sits in his little chamber like Diogenes in his tub. This man Raphael nurses and cares for like a child." And now follows the descrip- tion of Raphael's character, already given : he speaks of his mastery of the art of painting in every respect, the technique as well as theory ; of his wealth, his high position and his modesty when conversing with schol- THE SISTINE MADONNA. 203 ars if there was a difference of opinion involved. Raphael's innate attractiveness was the great reason why men approached him with such friendliness ; but certainly not this alone. He knew that, if he would profit from the friendship of learned men, it could only be by the utmost deference and a species of re- fined submission to them. Perhaps the nature of his father began to repeat itself in him. Would that some accident might bring to light material exhibiting him more clearly to us in his daily inter- course with men. Raphael was disturbed by nothing. The inde- scribable harmony which breathes from his works only his peculiar character could have imparted to them. This is what chiefly surprises us in his pic- tures. For ten years I had not seen the Camera della Segnatura. Every figure, every movement, every fold of the drapery I remembered, nothing was new to me when I again looked up at the walls ; but what affected me like a wholly new experience, as if I had never felt it before, was the tranquillity with which they filled me. This element is not wanting in any of the productions by Raphael's hand ; where it seems to be lacking we have the proof that he committed the work to an assistant. And it is this personal feeling upon which is based the recognition of his works : the silent admiration with which one stands before them confirms the judgment. I knew the Madonna di Foligno perfectly well. From earliest childhood I had an engrav- 204 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. ing of it before my eyes, and in later years I had often seen the painting ; and now as I stand again before it in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican, this tranquillizing feeling comes over me, like a first impression, which can only be felt in the presence of the picture itself. The world was lovely to Raphael, and life overflowing with pleasures. We see Goethe, beside laboring untiringly on his great poems, writing and putting on the stage Carnival jokes, (which served only to amuse a single evening,) or whatever else was demanded in Weimar. But Goethe also at times was inaccessible ; the days upon which he, as he says, desired to be left alone with his glass of wine. It was so also with Raphael ; usually, however, he was to be seen. Not only did he stand at the service of the artists he knew, but, as Vasari says, also of those he did not know. He needed men ; he allowed himself to be disturbed. We see him tak- ing part in the eternal variety in which Leo X. found his happiness. For the merry comedies which made the pope laugh, Raphael arranged the scenes. We have written accounts preserved describing these gaieties. Leo X. remained the same to his last day. Quickly enough did the sums hoarded up by Julius II. run through his fingers. Even the jewels were finally pawned. And added to all, a conspiracy of the cardinals came to light, in which such a multi- tude of them had joined, that nothing was left to the pope but tears and a general pardon. When the col- THE SISTIXE MADONNA. 205 lections for St. Peter's were interrupted, the building came to a standstill ; and then ensued the spiritual revo- lution in Germany. All these worries, however, were not mighty enough to destroy his good humor, or in- terfere with his determination to preserve it. " Go- diamoci della vita, perche Dio ci la data," he said to his dying brother, upon whom the hopes of the Medici mainly rested.* He wished to enjoy his reign ; to have no cares. No one shoidd be allowed to disturb his feeling that the day had dawned which was to restore to life again all the splendor of antiquity, and perhaps to surpass it. He seems never to have lost his confidence in the benignity of fate. This was the atmosphere in which Raphael passed the last years of his life. The most delightful memorial of these days is the Villa Chigi, which still stands on the banks of the Tiber among the gardens which filled this part of Rome. Raphael prepared only the draw- ings for the frescoes on the walls of the lower story. Vasari does not praise them very heart- ily, and they contain little of the charm usually felt upon a closer observation of Raphael's works ; still on the whole, they are one of the most attrac- tive gifts from an artist's hand which fate has pre- served to us. Life in gardens and garden palaces made a part of the city existence in Rome, where the largest portion of the inner area, now covered with houses, lay waste and overgrown with weeds. * Lite of Michael Augelo. 206 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. On the sites of the ruins the villas of the popes, the cardinals, and the mighty families were built.* Raphael's own garden-house, situated outside the Porta del Popolo, with pictures which he had lightly painted on the walls, stood in our day unchanged in the Villa Borghese, until Garibaldi's troops were quartered there, and razed it to the ground. The Parnassus of the Camera della Segnatura represented rather the times of Julius II., when something of the antique was added, but still subordinated to their own mightier existence ; the paintings in the Farnesina, on the other hand, are a veritable me- morial of Leo's days, when the antique had won the ascendency, was the prevailing taste, and the modern Romans believed themselves able again to revive, by the perpetual masquerades of daily life, the Greek and Roman Olympus. In the life of Michael Angelo, I have described the representa- tions taken from the story of Venus, which Raphael conceived for the walls of the Villa Chigi ; an after- bloom of antique art, whose forms he frankly tries to make his own.f * Rome was covered with these garden fields up to our day, which now are sacrificed to the unmerciful demands of modern times. According to Ilerr von Geymiiller, Raphael built the Far- nesina. This idea pleased me at first, but I have now given it up. There is no reason for striking out Peruzzi, whom Vasari names as the architect. t In speaking of Hutten in Rome, I am reminded of the gar- dens of Gorizius. He was of the company who gathered there and sang in distiches of the image of Mary, given by Gorizius to the church of San Agostino. Above this marble by Sanso- vino, Raphael had painted upon the wall in this same church the THE SISTINE MADONNA. 207 A walk through the Farnesina is a cheerful ex- perience, and fills the mind with pleasing pictures and with gratitude to the creator of them. Raphael has made such a selection from Apuleius' story of Psyche as to bring the different gods and goddesses into each scene as principal characters. They are not illustrations accompanying the poem, but strik- ing moments, that remind us of it, combined for the ornamentation of the great Loggia. In the adjoining Loggia we see that Raphael has taken his subject, the Triumph of Venus, from the poems of colossal Isaiah (of which to-day almost nothing of Hie original is visible) with the two angels or cupids bearing wreaths of fruit and flowers. The admission of angels into the realm of genii is a distinguish- ing mark of that period. Michael Angelo, in the Sixtine Chapel, began to mingle pagan with Christian figures in the province of sacred painting, and Raphael did likewise. In the Madonna di Foligno the angel bearing the tablet is not to be distinguished from the genii of the antique. The personifications, too, on the ceiling of the Camera dclla Segnatura show the mingling of these two ele- ments; out of one of the genii, which in the beginning attended the figure of " Poesie," was developed the first form of the Christ-child in the Madonna di Foligno. Hutteii may have met Raphael in the gardens of Gorizius, although no line of his writings bears witness to it. Think of a man like Hutten, born twenty years earlier! Such a career as his would then have been impossible. Think of Sir Thomas More's " Utopia " or Erasmus' " Praise of Folly " ten years earlier! These writings were addressed to a European public which before the days of Leo X. did not exist. Hutten's entire spiritual existence shows, together with the im- pulse towards the new and the unknown, an absence ol all ca- pacity for organization in the present sense: he rested in gen- eralities. The comfort of life was nowhere disturbed but steadily increased. Captivated by the hope of higher satisfaction in attain- able conditions, in the receptivity for all that a broader intellectual intercourse offered, men watched calmly the farther development of things. 208 THE LIFE OF KAPHAEL. one of his contemporaries. The fact that Vasari calls the picture Galatea stolen by the Sea-gods, has suggested the idea that the central figure, Venus in her shell chariot, is Galatea. But Raphael has rep- resented Galatea in the foreground at the left, just as she is overtaken by Polyphemus, who has pursued her, and is stealing a kiss, thus adding the contents of a poem by Pontanus to the description by Apul- eius of Cupid's mother sailing the sea. Pontanus, a poet of the Neapolitan school, and possibly an ac- quaintance of Raphael, under the form of an antique ode, had gracefully spun out this adventure.* If we ask after the woman from whom, as Vasari asserts, Raphael refused to be separated when he was painting the Farnesina, we are disappointed to * Galatea teases Polyphemus, who rushes after her into the waves and swimming madly at last catches her. She screams aloud for help, and the sea-gods hasten to her assistance. But Polyphemus has already seized her and stolen a kiss from her lips. She tears herself from him and plunges into the depths below. Raphael has chosen the moment of the seizure, and when Venus is coming with her attendants to save her. Pontanus has given Polyphemus the form of a Triton (XV. Essays III. Folge p. 380 ff). Also in the Judg- ment of Paris, which is only preserved in Marcantonio's engraving, Raphael seems to have used the text of a Neapolitan poet, Sanna- zaro, still more renowned than Pontanus. In one of his works San- nazaro describes the scene pictured by Raphael. That his poems were known to Raphael his own poetical attempts confirm, and in some completed sonnets, and others which he had only begun, he uses this writer's terms of expression. Certainly Raphael never rtreamed that these verses would be seen. Akin to the Judgment of Paris is the Marriage of Roxana, the magnificent red chalk drawing of which is in Vienna. Sodoma de- rived suggestions from it for his fresco in the upper story of the Farnesina. But that any one should ascribe that drawing also to Sodoma is to me incomprehensible. See the " Ausftihrungen." THE SISTINE MADONNA. 209 find we can learn neither her name nor anything trustworthy concerning her. One remark may be made. From the year 1517, Raphael's studies are all of the same equally strong, fine, fresh, youthful figure, now as one of the Graces, now as Venus. And the same resemblance appears, too, in the faces in these drawings ; the hair parted over the brow stands out somewhat fuller on one-half the head, as if the hair was thicker on this side, and drooped a little deeper than on the other in a wavy line toward the ear. The features likewise seem to repeat them- selves. Is this the woman of whom Vasari relates Chigi had to use every means to persuade her to come to the Villa, because Raphael could not work without her? A study for the great Madonna of the Louvre, too, shows this same figure most charmingly, and if I may frankly express my opinion, this delicate drawing is of more worth than the painting itself. If we should allow ourselves to build up further hypotheses on these data, plenty of things would present themselves without one hav- ing any more claim to probability than another. This personality is most strikingly infused into a portrait which is to-day in the Sciarra Palace in Rome, but unfortunately it is not to be seen. Music was of all the arts the one in which Leo took the greatest delight, and to the court-musicians the young man must have belonged, whose likeness, bearing the date 1518, was one of Raphael's latest portraits ; the only one done in the manner to 210 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. which he finally surrendered himself. The young man regards us with a tender, melancholy look. Only one hand is visible, and in that he holds his violin-bow and a laurel-twig. A touch of the ten- derest blue haze overspreads the colors. So infused with Raphael's nature is this likeness, that it is some- times believed to be his own.* The painting of the Transfiguration signifies the close of Raphael's efforts to portray an image of Christ. Raphael and Michael Angelo seem each at the beginning of their career, in the Pieta, and in the Entombment, to have created what was most ur- gently demanded of the artists of their time ; an ideal Christ, in the contemplation of which men might find satisfaction. But the task soon called for a different solution. Fresh requisitions sprang from new ideas. Raphael and Michael Angelo con- tinued to strive so long as they lived to satisfy these demands. By Michael Angelo nothing farther was achieved, however often he applied himself to the task ; Raphael, on the contrary, found in the Trans- figuration, in the Christ lifted above the earthly, his final type. In attempts to create a type of the liv- ing earthly Christ it was not given to either to suc- ceed. *The date MDX VIII. may have been repainted. I last saw the painting in 1876, and rejoiced at its excellent preservation. To-day it is said to be concealed in the same palace. Of the duty which such a treasure imposes upon its owner, both towards his contem- poraries and the memory of Raphael, they know nothing in the Sciarra Palace. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 211 The convictions out of which arose an ideal of Christ among the artists working in the Quattro- cento, and the reasoji why this ideal failed to satisfy the Cinquecento lay in circumstances which operated with equal force to create different Views from those entertained in the previous age. Spiritual revolutions of a universal kind spring out of mate- rial changes, which are at first subordinate, but soon win the upper hand, and even in spiritual mat- ters turn the scale. The leaders in the spiritual transition can no longer find the right path ; it is the men of more material views who educate those by whom the revolution is principally carried forward. In the Quattrocento, as we have seen, progressive thought found the heartiest response among the burghers, the cities afterward deriving the benefit therefrom. Preparation for church re- form went on in the cities. But in the progress of the Cinquecento, the princes rose to power, and those who were dependent upon them for a career now became leaders in controversies which ended in the wars of the Reformation. The young generation of the Cinquecento found the cities too contracted. Their civil constitution had something selfish in its caste distinctions, something merciless in its laws, and cruel in their execution. Whoever fell under the power of a city tribunal was doomed to frightful ex- periences. Administrative assemblies must judge objectively, and may not listen to the voice of mercy, however benevolent by nature individual members 212 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. may be ; but with the advent of the princes, who ap- plied a personal standard, room was given for mercy, even if also for favoritism. Under intelligent princes talented men, finding the limits of their native city too narrow, could enter upon a larger sphere of activity. It was this which rendered the unlimited sway of the dukes popular in Tuscany ; finally, even in Florence herself, although they destroyed the civil organization of the city, which they now made their residence. One only of the self sustained cities of Italy refused allegiance, Venice, which was governed by a number of aristocratic families. The middle class of laboring citizens in Venice never at any time succeeded in rising to the top. Under the tyrannical sway of an enlightened oligarchy at the beginning of the Cinquecento, Venice usurped the defence of free ideas in Italy, while a few, even in Rome, ad- vocated the regeneration of the church, but in the way proposed by the clergy, who represented them. In Venice, ecclesiastical as well as political things were judged in the most statesmanlike way.* * In the " Life of Michael Angelo," 2d vol., these matters are treated in detail. The great question pending in the first half of the cen- tury was whether France or Hapsburg would be victorious in Europe, and whether the power which conquered would rise and sustain itself through the aid of liberal ideas, and whether liberal ideas were not winning the mastery over Rome? These were excit- ingproblems, which roused the people all over Europe, and in which Raphael and the Rome of Leo X- shared to the fullest extent. The two parties contended at the papal court, and the Liberals never sus- pected they could be defeated. The best view for an understanding; THE SISTIXE MADONNA. 213 And now let us note the echo of these conditions in the realm of art. Democratic Florence first at- tempted to create a plain humble man-Christ, and Raphael and Michael Angelo labored here to do- their best, while Titian, rising to eminence among the patrician families of Venice, succeeded in paint- ing Christ such as his century fashioned him. Titian's Christ, with the tribute money, has the aristocratic air then considered essential in representing heavenly persons. The full-grown Cinquecento required dis- tinction, yes, even elegance. We learn from " der Heliand" that in the primitive days of Germany a national Christ had been created, " the Might}* Lord "' who like a traveling hero roved through the land with his disciples. A reflection of this idea now came back again. The warlike ele- ment surrounding the princes made the brave noble- man whom his good sword helps through, the type^ in Europe, and Christ is represented in the guise of a king's son traveling incognito, to whom wherever he appears, or wishes to enter, a glorious reception is given, which he in no wise refuses. If, in earlier days, Christ, sitting at the table with the poor and lowly, seemed poor himself, this despised one was- now elevated to be the highest, and if pictured at table Christ sits at the head with the air and mien. of this is obtained through Erasmus" correspondence. He h:id rela- tions with all parties, and particular accounts were forwarded to him. These letters should be published in their genuine form and with correct dates. 214 THE LIFE OK RAPHAEL. of a perfect nobleman. Titian represents this, but in a modest way ; the refinement of his Christ with the tribute money seems only like a delicate perfume wafted about his being ; but Paul Veronese and Rubens took full advantage of the conception. The only master who, in the course of the seventeenth century, sought to represent the Saviour according to his own sincere feeling, is after all the protestant Rembrandt, in whose imagination the events of the New Testament are reflected, as in Shakespeare's the events of profane universal history. To Rem- brandt the artists turn to-day who would picture the Gospel narrative in the German national sense, while those who would give historical photographs represent Christ according to the national Jewish type. If we survey this steady development in realistic perception, it appears that Raphael and Michael Angelo had very little to do with it. What came into being in later times and outside of their cir- cle had no affinity with their views. The Quat- trocento artists, who attempted realism, had repre- sented Christ in a wholly different way from Titian and his school. They had always tried to separate the Saviour, as by a wide gulf, from his surround- ings, to suggest that his thoughts were so far ele- vated above those of all human beings as to admit of no comparison. But this distinction, also, the Ven- etians and their successors annihilated. Herein lies the essential difference in the conceptions, that not THE SISTINE MADONNA. 215 merely in appearance was Christ to the Venetian school a man like other men, but he thought as they. In form and bearing he is the type of a high-born, high-bred noble, and the sphere of his spiritual influ- ence is enlarged. The representations of the Al- mighty, of Mary and the Saints, became, through a like process, that of princely personages, even to their accessories. Raphael, Michael Angelo, and the Roman Flor- entine school saw full well that the Quattrocento was done with, and we have before us their innu- merable attempts to satisfy the new requirements. But they never tried the way of the Venetians, be- cause a simple return to realism was alwavs im- possible in Rome, where antique art governed the taste alike of artists and public. If Raphael painted but few pictures of the Saviour during the years of his apprenticeship, no Last Supper, no Last Judg- ment, no Crucifixion, it may have been because he perceived clearly that what he would produce, at the command of his own imagination, the public, sur- rounding him, could not understand. Strange and unattractive to the Romans and even to him had become the naturalism once so much in vogue, yet to accept the antique without limit or consideration was beyond him. In the Cartoons for the Tapes- tries, in the Calling of Peter, for example, we have seen him forced to adapt his work to the taste of the Vatican and indeed, also, to that of Rome. In the Disputa, he was to represent Christ 21G THE LIFE OF KAPIIAEL. enthroned on high as the second person in the Trinity. And here we perceive the influence of the antique, especially in the breadth and universality of the features. Raphael may possibly have been led to weaken the personality in this conception of Christ, because to the Almighty, rising conspicuously above him in the picture, must be given the highest import. In the person of an aged, but vigorous man, by the might of his eye keeping the universe in motion, whose hand, solemnly raised, preserves the harmony of the spheres, this figure is not with- out individuality ; indeed, like the figure of God over the Madonna di Perugia, it is strikingly human. Not to detract from the individual effect of this figure, Raphael may have given to Christ beneath the more universal features which the an- tique placed at his command. In this he proceeded after the manner of Michael Angelo, who, in his most sublime creation, evolved the face and form of the Divine out of the purely human. Manly features often take on in extreme old age something grandly universal. They appear to part with a certain individuality, as with increas- ing years and through elevating experiences they attain to world-wide contemplations. The figure of Christ, on the other hand, who, as eternally young, should exhibit certain traces of youth, should be strong and attractive, Michael Angelo fashioned af- ter the antique, which alone seemed capable of giv- ing expression to the perfect freshness and bloom of THE SISTINE MADONNA. 217 life. In the course of his seventy years of labor he created many representations of Christ. They were chiefly drawings, and were not intended for a great public.* In all these works he has departed from the manner of his Pieta, but instead of adopt- ing the Venetian character, has sought to create a new one of his own. Attention has been called to a conception of Christ which long prevailed, where he comes forth from his sarcophagus as a hero of gigantic power and beauty to descend into hell. He wrenches the gates off their hinges, which are de- fended by devils, and sets free the leading persons in Old Testament history, beginning with Adam and Eve. This continued to be the ideal of Christ, after his resurrection, and for these gigantic figures antique models were welcome and natural. But soon they were also demanded for scenes in the life of Christ, before his death, and though they first entered into the Passion, at last became the pop- ular manner of representing him even at the very beginning of his career. Ghiberti's heroic type was again accepted as the true one. Michael Angelo formed a new ideal. The Christ which he drew from Sebastian del Piombo, and intended for the Borgherini Chapel in San Pietro in Montorio has the faultless limbs of a demigod, who submits, almost voluntarily, to his fate, could free himself * Some of these drawings are so carefully executed that they are not to be considered as studies or sketches, but as artistic produc- tions to which the fonu of drawings were purposely given. 218 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. if he would, and put all his enemies to flight. Not only did the artists turn back to Ghiberti, but it may be said that in later generations they sometimes turned back to much earlier men and periods of development. The Byzantine ideal of Christ, the rigid grandeur of the elongated features had been gradually developed in the course of centuries out of the antique head of Jupiter. On the Roman Christian sarcophagi we find a head which is a cross between Apollo and Jupiter ; the Byzantines gave the preference to the latter.* At the beginning of the Cinquecento the choice was again between Jupi- ter and Apollo ; to borrow the Apollo type was a saving for Michael Angelo when he painted his Last Judgment. On the wall of the Sistine chapel, Christ, as judge of mankind, appears in the form of this god, whose head is copied, even to the arrange- ment of the hair.f * In the L,ateran a Roman sarcophagus of the fourth century in two different representations exhibits both types at once. f The head of Christ in Santa Maria sopra Minerva might just as appropriately belong to Saint John. The colossal marble head in the castle of St. Angelo which Montelupo executed perhaps under Michael Angelo's influence shows in like manner the mingling of real and ideal elements. In that group which stands unfinished in the dim light of the Florentine cathedral the aged Michael Angelo spoke his lust word : the Christ who had died a miserable death, just taken from the cross, is at the same time suffused with the highest beauty. He returned to the first conception of his youth, and it is the only figure of the four composing the group which in single parts is entirely finished. No one of the artists working among Florentine-Roman art here attained to the right ideal. Next to Raphael and Michael Angelo we inquire for Leonardo. According to the legend he never fin- ished the head of Christ in Santa Maria delle Grazie at Milan. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 219 Raphael painted at about the same time with the Disputa the Vision of Ezekiel, in which, as Vasari says : " Christ is represented in the manner of a Jupiter." The picture though of small size is a colossal conception. Standing before it a while we imagine ourselves as from a distance, looking at a picture which covers a wall. Works of art, have, as we have said, beside their real, an ideal measure, rarely corresponding to the actual one, but which comes before us most vividly when we recall them. I do not deny, yet by no means feel sure that Raphael painted it upon a direct reading of the Bible. At any rate it behoves us to compare text At present there is nothing to be seen, and even the drawing pre-, served in the Ambrosiana contains little more than the beginnings of a face. I believe that Leonardo finished the head in the paint- ing, but that it was different from the one begun in the drawing. In the church of Capriasca at Lugano a copy of the Last Supper is preserved (injured in parts). Here Christ's face is completely exe- cuted, and reminds us of the great bronze Christ in the group by VeiTochio(Leonardo's teacher; on the outer wall of Or San Michele in Florence. What Leonardo wished to produce is most finely portrayed in the Ecce Homo of the Berlin Museum, which I ascribe to him, although it passes for the work of a nameless scholar of the Milan school. At least it reflects most plainly Leonardo's special qualities. To Leonardo is to be traced, likewise, the face of Christ which Salari has reproduced in various ways and which must rank, as the most original type. But even this did not offer what was wanted ; the masters that grew tip in the Quattrocento could not pro- duce what a new generation demanded. It may be said, however, that the intrinsic power of the Roman Florentine school helped to strengthen the conservative, ecclesias- tical direction which had its head and centre in Rome. Michael Angelo, retaining to very old age his fresh creative power, belonged to the elements on which the old ideas found support. 220 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. and painting. The Old Testament pictures Ezekiel's vision as a series of rapidly changing phenomena. A whirlwind brings from the north a huge black cloud surrounded with golden fire, which breaks out from it. In the middle of the cloud appear four living beings with human features. Each has four faces and four wings ; their outstretched feet have soles like those of calves, they have hands under their wings at the four sides ; they touch each other with their wings but each steps forward as his face is directed. One seems a man, one a lion, one a steer, and over all hovers an eagle. These animals sweep forward and backward spurting flame with the rapidity of lightning. Now a wheel becomes visible with four faces. This wheel is like the sea and its motion is joined to that of the animals, until finally after the description of this wheel, by powerful similes, has been carried still further, a peaceful rainbow ends the scene. Whoever reads this chapter in Ezekiel receives the impression that a thunder storm in symbolic mystic pictures is passing before his im- agination, and were an artist of to-day to receive an order to paint such a storm, very possibly the result would be a fantastic landscape of colossal size after the style of Rembrandt or Bocklin. The characteristic of the vision is that, corresponding to great throes and convulsions in nature, the unexpected breaks upon us and becomes only more petrifying from scene to scene. In Raphael's painting on the contrary, an artisti- cally mingled group of men and animals wander over THE SISTINE MADONNA. 221 the landscape far below. The clear light of the open heavens, encircled by a wreath of dark cloud forms the back ground, out of which the figures come toward us like a vision, but the illumination is so natural and like a cheerful sky that all the details can be studied as if they were held still. A steer lying at full length upon a cloud, as upon a meadow, with half upturned head blinks comfortably at Christ, and a slender angel maiden, resting also upon an im- mense cloud, is seen with hands crossed meekly on her breast. To the repose of these two beings cor- responds that of the lion and the eagle, and even Christ from his throne floating in the ether, looks down upon earth somewhat as the Jews looked down upon Asia from Ida and saw the sea lying at their feet. The union of antique art with Christian ideas is a fact in this composition. As in the pro- phets painted by Michael Angelo there is something statuesque, while the peculiarity of the account of the vision of Ezekiel in the Bible is its lack of clear outlines.* At the same time that Raphael was at work upon the Cartoons for the Tapestries he was obliged to paint the Bearing of the Cross. We might dis- tinguish this composition from the cartoons by saying, that in the latter, events are related in the * In drawings for the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, Raphael touched the extreme in antique sculpturesque representa- tion, where God, as creator of the starry heavens, is in the centre like Jupiter, and the planets are represented as heathen goddesses to whom through his angels he sends his commands. 222 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL most glorious prose while the Bearing of the Cross is a tragedy written in heroic verse. An excess of emotion makes itself felt. Two figures serve to illustrate my meaning, the one at the ex- treme left, an athletic man with his back turned to us, who is about to lift up the fallen Christ and drag him forward by the rope with which he is girdled, and Mary at the extreme right upon her knees bending forward with both arms outstretched, at sight of whom the Saviour has lost all power and fallen. As picturesque motives we have seen both these before on the ceiling of the Camera della Segnatura in the Judgment of Solomon. The man corresponds to the executioner who will divide the child, and Mary to that one of the mothers who claims the child as hers. An exhibition of brutal, unmerciful strength and maternal despair would be here quite as appropriate, but in what a moderate form does Raphael allow it to appear? Whence this theatrical pathetic tone infused so noticeably into some of his later works ? It is nec- essary to answer these questions somewhat at length. If we can ascertain to what extent foreign ideas intermingled with his own in Raphael's first works, it is extremely difficult with regard to his last pro- ductions. As he progresses he gains in breadth, and how is it possible for us to survey the sum of what he saw and of what, more or less powerfully and more or less consciously, reinforced the shaping power of his imagination ! Recollections stretching THE SISTIXE MADONNA. 223 back to his childhood, fresh impressions leading to imitation must have proved their power over him as over every other creative artist. But to calculate how much influence the antique had, which, in his case might seem easy, is most difficult. We can hunt tip whence Ii3 took single motives in his first Roman times ; but from Bramante's death, when he entered upon a larger sphere of labor, and was officially empowered to aid in the preservation of antique works, their influence over him increased to a very considerable extent. Undoubtedly Ra- phael began to search out what of genuine antique material and works existed in Rome, and was thus led to more profound study of them. I have lately met with the assertion that Raphael had before him the Laocoon-head for the Christ in the Bearing of the Cross. Of course, he was fa- miliar with it. The drawing from the group from which Marcantonio made his engraving: came out of o o Raphael's school. But in the face of Christ Bearing the Cross I fail to discover the slightest resemblance to this antique head. Others had long before found out that Raphael took as model for this picture the drawing made by Diirer for his Grosse Passion, while still others say he made use of Martin Schon's large engraving of the Cross-Bearing. More than these, however, Raphael seemed to have used Diirer's wood-cut of the Cross-Bearing in the Kleine Pas- sion. The main fact of interest is Raphael's turn- ing to a German master at this time for the figure of Christ. 224 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Perhaps there came into the picture in this way something foreign to Raphael's nature, an element of barbarity, which is not to be explained. Tor- tured by the bitterest agony, resting his strained arm upon a stone by the wayside, Christ looks at his mother, with her hands extended powerless to help him, and at us, as if seeking for some one who would come to his assistance. The only consoling feature in the distressing scene is the act of the man behind him, who lifts the cross off Christ's shoulders, and in the effort required of his bare, nervous arm, shows plainly how heavy the bur- den was which weighed the Saviour down. Diirer possessed all the gifts needed to represent this. Not only in his "passions," but in some of his drawings he has pictured the sufferings of Christ, and the naivete of these works, the sympathy they reveal, make them bearable, however cruel and dreadful the sight may be. But Raphael was not made for such things ! If we except the Cruci- fixion in the days of his apprenticeship, which he may be said to have copied from Perugino, he has left no picture of Christ's sufferings, and I believe could never have executed the Bearing of the Cross out of his own imagination, or without borrowing from foreign ideas. The impression widely felt that something foreign to his nature is introduced into the picture, may account for the suggestion of the Laocoon. The overwrought figures borrowed from the Judgment of Solomon prove how consciously THE SISTINE MADONNA. 225 Raphael made use of external resources when obliged to paint cruelty and violence, because he had no trace of any such element in himself. And just as consciously he affected the highly tragic style when, out of regard for those who ordered the works, he allowed a certain cold elegance to per vade some of his Madonna pictures. Nor was he- deceived as to the effect. The head of Christ in the Bearing of the Cross has become the type for this kind of representation. Guido Rcni is indebted to it fundamentally for his marvellously effective exhibition of Christ's agony. This, in short, is the history of Raphael's attempts to create a face and a figure of Christ, not so much to satisfy his own inward needs, as to respond to the wishes of the public. Had 1 been able to take his drawings into consideration, and also Marcantonio's engravings, the investigation would have gained in breadth, but the result would have been the same. The impression that Raphael is representing what he feels, which we have when gazing at the En- tombment, none of these later efforts inspire. That they were only attempts is proved by his hesitation in the Cartoons for the Tapestries. If we remem- ber, in the first sketch for the Calling of Peter he represents Christ in a simple, natural way, and only later gives to him the heroic attitude. We know his reason for not painting such pictures of the Saviour as he would have enjoyed himself. Raphael's efforts in this direction had during some years wholly 226 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. ceased, when he received an order which tempted him to undertake the task again, and for the last time ; the result was a production which is to be ranked among the most sublime creations of modern art : the Transfiguration ! Raphael's power is here displayed in its widest scope. He has found at last what he sought. His principles attain in this composition the fullest expression. Let us step before the picture as it stands in the pinacoteca of the Vatican. It is of conspicuous size, and the panel is almost one-third higher than it is broad. There are two representations, one above the other. In the one below and nearest to us there is a crowd of agitated people, modeled in strong light and dark, a variety of bright colors and almost impenetrable shadows : in the other, farther from us, the tones are lighter, and upon and over a hill, fill- ing the background, are the figures. At the first glance, notwithstanding the graphic scene below, we think it incomprehensible, but a certain power ema- nating from it leads us to study this picture first, and for the moment we forget what is above. Two masses of people are pressing towards one another. From the right a throng of men and women, with a lunatic boy among them, whom one of their num- ber is with difficulty holding upright. We see they have brought him hither, in the hope of obtaining relief from those who are now standing very near them on the opposite side. These men are of all ages, some are in conversation, some meditating, THE SISTINE MADONNA. 227 some reading. They have been startled by the cries of distress from the approaching group, and are gazing at the boy with the reserve and pitiful curi- osity usually shown in such cases. They express sympathy, but at the same time are embarrassed, be- cause they cannot help. Two have turned away, unable any longer to bear the sight of the suffering child. One among them, who is in the centre, seems to be explaining to the rest that they really can do nothing, since he, who alone is able to heal, has gone up into the mountain, to which he points. The em- phasis of the scene lies in the demand of the poor people for a miracle, and the reproach implied when these men offer only pity and sympathy. What next attracts us is not in the strictest sense the meaning of the whole, which, only by degrees, dawns upon us, but the way in which every one of the numerous characters seems to act for him or herself. Each has an individuality, and we would like to see into the hearts and know the thoughts of O these people better. In Shakespere's finest tragedies the figures are such comprehensive types of real beings as to inspire us with the feeling that the share they have in the scenes (where we imagine they only accidentally appear before us) seems to reveal but a small portion of a life which we know throughout as a whole, and recognize as individual. In this sense all the figures in the lower part of the Transfiguration are explicable. We soon discover that the group of nine men are 228 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. the Apostles, who have stayed below, while three have accompanied the Saviour to the Mount. Each expresses in his own way their sympathy at the sight of the suffering child, and the friends and rela- tives opposite, to the left of the Apostles, no less individually betray their expectation of a miracle. " What will happen ? " we ask, and become wholly absorbed in the sight, until finally seeking for a solu- tion ourselves, we lift our eyes and see it : Christ rising into the cloud, with upturned eyes, and hands raised, half -blessing, half-supplicating, gives the solu- tion ; from him alone can the help come. And now suddenly all below has vanished, and we have only the new scene before us. With the first survey this upper part, lighter in color and with smaller figures, seems to occupy the background, but as we continue to look at this upper part by itself, the scene apparently moves towards us, and takes the foreground. The Saviour, robed in white, is borne upward on the breath of a gently rising storm ; on either side of him is an aged man. A brilliant sea of cloud opens to receive them. Beneath their feet, stretched out on the summit of the mountain, are the three Disciples, who, just awakened from sleep, are trying to shade their eyes that they may see what is taking place above them. We next observe that in comparison with these three forms kneeling or stretched upon the ground the three floating figures of Christ, Moses and Elias have something super- human and immeasurably grand, like cloud pictures. THE SIST1NE MADONNA. 229 This scene needs no interpretation. And when we at last drop our eyes again to the foot of the mountain, the picture here has also found expla- nation. If we compare the records of this occurrence by the different Evangelists, we see that Raphael chose St. Luke's account. It admitted of his painting the two scenes as simultaneous, because he does not rep- resent the healing of the boy, but how the Disci- ples at first turn away from him, saying, "Jesus alone can restore him." And we have here also Eaphael's interpretation of St. Luke's words, that " Jesus entered with Moses and Elias into the cloud," hence he pictures them as floating. Possibly, when he came to paint Christ, as the other Evangelists say, "white as the snow," the floating figure of Christ in Luca della Robbia's Ascension, over the door of the sacristy in Florence, came to his recol- lection. For it does seem truly as if Christ's Ascen- sion, rather than his Transfiguration is represented. Sebastian del Piombo, from Michael Angelo's design in San Pietro in Montorio, is the only one who has represented the Saviour as if lifted by the air to meet Moses and Elias, who come floating towards him. It has been considered a fault in the Transfigu- ration that Raphael had here combined two scenes which do not belong together. But would he, in this his ripest work, commit an error which every bungler could reproach him with ? My own opinion. is that in this division of the composition a mar- 230 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. vellous effect was planned which each individual may test for himself. A sketch in the Albertina shows that Raphael at first intended to paint only what was taking place upon the mountain. It seems to me that the dra- matic setting had become an essential for his pic- tures, and that in seeking a means by which to give to Christ, soaring into the clouds, the effect of a momentary apparition, an idea occurred to him so grand that it could never have entered the mind of any one who had not the genius of a Raphael. The observer should be (as it were) forced to look up at Christ, but only for a limited time, who, suddenly appearing, will just as suddenly vanish again. I have pointed out above how the picture is to be studied ; in fact, we are forced in a measure to con- template the scenes successively. The eye may hesi- tate at first where to turn, but once caught by the scene below, we are absorbed in it. Raphael has neglected no means of riveting the attention here. Without permission for it in the Gospels, he has in- troduced between the two approaching groups (and in the open space it is most strikingly effective), a woman who, with one knee upon the ground, and back turned broadly to us. and both arms extended, is pointing to the unfortunate boy, with a kind of angry challenge in her look, as she turns her head to- ward the Apostles on the other side, demanding of them to heal him. With imperious command she wishes to force them, in place of this fruitless sym- THE SISTINE MADONNA. 231 pathy, to lay their hands on him and heal him without delay. This woman is in gorgeous attire. She has ornaments in her hair ; her vigorous arms are bare, and her head turned so that we see her face only in profile. What Raphael meant by this figure his- torically we do not know. Artistically, she may well have seemed to him indispensable, for the contrast of feminine beauty was needed beside so many mas- culine forms and faces. Immensely large and power- ful, she is at the same time beautiful, and reminds us of those heroic creations which Michael Angelo bore in his imagination at that time, intending to adorn with them the tomb of the Medici. Lost in admiration of the scene at the foot of the mountain, we have forgotten the upper part of the picture. The raised hands of the two Apostles now direct our eyes to the height. They do not point to what is happening there, but the raised hands simply say that Jesus is on the mountain and not below among them. If it had been Raphael's intention that any one of those below should see what was taking place above, it would have been manifested in some more intelligible way. But we finally lift our eyes, and what we see bursts upon TIS like a vision. Christ and the two figures beside him are encircled by the cloud, suffused with brilliant white liiit, as if the summit of the mountain from o which Christ had ascended reached up into it. Vas- ari complains that Raphael had thrown too deep a shade over the Disciples below, but without this con- 232 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. trast it would have been impossible to picture the scene above in such unsullied light. In some point, every true work of art is a mystery. The strange feature in the Transfiguration is that there is nothing startling in the superhuman gran- deur of Christ. However successful Michael Angelo may have been in his conception of the Saviour rising from the tomb, a hero of invincible, supernatural power, it was still little in harmony with that contained in the Gospels. The corporeal is far too predomi- nant in Michael Angelo's Christ, who comes thunder- ing forth * out of the grave, not a giant, but a kind of athlete. In the Transfiguration, on the contrary, Christ seems to lose what is material in proportion as he rises to supernal conditions, as if he might become greater and greater, until like a cloud he disappears from sight. To a-ap eyeVero TrvcC/xn. For this reason the Christ of the Transfiguration lacks the character of an object of worship, as understood in the Catholic church. The figure of Christ is wanting in all that is naturalistic. And must not the human be over- stepped if a man is to be represented who is said to be God, the divine ? Raphael could only accomplish this by calling to his aid all that human art had pro- duced in representing God-like persons in earthly forms. That he had resorted for help to the antique was owing to the force of circumstances and not from * Goethe .speaks of tho sun as thundering through the heavens. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 233 his own free will. The purely natoal was out of he question Titian's Christ, from his time, has been the Chnst of the Romanic nations, as they stood opposed to the Protestants after they had sep. ara ed from the church in the latter half of tl rth7n, ? h r^ S CI ' riSt f * he T 's%uratio, is the Christ of the united European nations, all whom m his day, when Luther's influence was lust beo'innine- to LP fplf Ti/vi t ji ?. JLZ_;? ' . Ped from the univ ersal ion to attain e ;l ;iat;t;:r n to attain ^ * This was Raphael's last work! The wish to represent Christ still urges eve, he artists of to-day to new effort, Ch St' s 1 tnnes are the basis of our moral existence Th," -arri- But to satisfy this demand is impossible. as Wnd ^ , bei ? "^ US Iittk S P an > Olj y - long he endures has he an individual existence in thf ordmary sense. Immediately after his death, iu'recaU g h, m , a d^fnction obtains between those who knew hun personally and those who know of him through hi! works or deeds. At first the former only appear to have a right to speak of him ; but ever smXr be 234 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. works bring them into personal communion with him. The longer it is since he died, the less impor- tant is the peculiar costume of his day. We will have no genre picture, but before all things else the man himself ; no representation which only shows what he had once been for himself, his friends and contemporaries, but a picture which also contains what he stands there for, the reason of his ex- tended influence after his death. Perhaps the effect of his life only began after his death, and this effect is what we wish chiefly to have portrayed. We really do not want to see exactly how Christ ad- vanced through the different stages of his mental development, but we would like to span over and absorb with a glance his entire life, and not merely from his birth to his death, but far, far beyond, even down to our own day.* Now to wish to represent in the form of a real living individual a phenomenon from which an in- fluence emanated as from Christ is a fruitless caprice. Yet at the present time precisely this has become, we might almost say, the mode ; but these attempts are absurd and unworthy speculations on the curiosity of the public. Christ can no longer be portrayed. The complications of earthly life which entered into * It is very curious that beside Christ in the form of a grown up man, we have his child-form as if he existed in both at the same time. Thus the representation became possible of Christ as a child from the arm of the virgin handing down the keys of heaven to Peter, who is a very old man. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 235 his surroundings from hour to hour during his actual experience here below are not to be traced out. What we desire to see in a face and form of Christ is so far beyond the measure of what an artist is able to create that it is impossible to satisfy this demand. Perhaps, however, the peculiar reason why even a Raphael would have failed at the present day to produce anything satisfactory, is that the plastic arts no longer have the living power they possessed at the beginning of the Cinquecento. Works of sculptors and painters are no longer the legible pro- ductions they were three hundred years ago. The imagination of to-day takes in far more from read- ing than from seeing. If the spirit or feeling we desire is not in the painted or chiselled picture, it cannot please us. It would seem, however, as if we were entering an epoch of restored capacity in this direction ; but at any rate it has not yet reached its zenith. Raphael and the masters about him mark the departure of one epoch in the Cinquecento and the entrance of another, the literary. It is possible that later generations will see in Goethe and the men about him the culmination of this latter period, and that to generations succeeding ours what is read will once more be less comprehensible than what stands artistically modelled before the eyes (the fas- cination of the Quattrocento for us may grow out of a consciousness of the same needs and capacities). It would be idle to pursue these speculations far- ther. But let me repeat that what the Quattrocento 236 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. and what the century of the Reformation possibly ex- pected and needed in a picture of Christ, that Ra- phael created in the Christ of the Transfiguration, after the achievement of which it is scarcely con- ceivable that he should make any farther attempt. With the Sistina, Raphael's painting of Madonnas, and with the Transfiguration, his pictures of Christ attained their end. Although Raphael had previously known, as we have seen, that the Sistine Madonna was to be almost hidden in a remote spot, he nevertheless embodied in it his highest ideal of the Virgin ; and it is still more astonishing that in the Transfiguration, which was to have been farther removed from the eyes of the Roman world, he should have chosen to incarnate the noblest conception of Christ of which his art was capable. Both prove entire unconcern as to the fate of his works, only to be explained by supposing in him a strong faith in the protecting power which watched over them. His death instantly called at- tention to the Transfiguration. It was felt that this last monument of his genius must not be allowed to leave Rome, and it was assigned to the church of San Pietro in Montorio. Plainly there was in the work itself and in his striving after perfection a joy and a stimulus which made all the tributes which an artist may expect, according to the greater or lesser merit of his productions, of small account. Even in this last noble production the duty seems to have been imposed upon him of introduc- THE SISTINE MADONNA. 237 ing, though they were altogether irrelevant, some of the courtiers in whose service he was at work : a few steps from the Apostles lying upon the ground we descry two young priests, who, kneeling, take the part of spectators. They are executed from life and are in the costume of the day. It is plain to see they are additions. This, then, was his last painting, and he had almost finished it, for it is nowhere visible that Giulio Romano was obliged to do any part of it.* One thing only the panel needed which it never has received : to have a warm translucent tone thrown over the whole, which, by softening the sharply con- trasted colors of the garments, would have given greater unity to the composition. There now stands beside the painting the almost completed drawing of an artist, unknown to me, who, it would seem, had intended to make an engraving from it. Here, the colors being entirely wanting, the unity and sim- plicity of the composition stand forth more convinc- ingly. Its spiritual significance, also, is easier to comprehend. In Raphael's conception, the Trans- figuration and Ascension had united, and still other ideas entered into it ; the lower part of the picture, symbolically interpreted, shows how helpless and impotent the world would be without Christ; the * All that has been said on this point is far from being substan- tiated. In the " Ausfiihrungen " more will be said. In face of the picture I cannot imagine why Crowe and Cavalcaselle ascribe only the upper part to Raphael's hand. 238 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. upper part brings him before us in the fullness of his glory. His upward-turned face seems to be receiving the heavenly illumination in order to radiate it again. 1 presume after completing the Transfiguration Raphael renounced religious painting for awhile in order to devote himself to historical works. Possibly lie then began Constantine's Victory over Maxentius in the hall attached to the other Vatican stanza, whose entire walls were to be covered with exhibi- tions of Constantine's deeds. Had Raphael been allowed to execute these paint- ings himself, he would have created something which would have shown him in a new light. Only the general design, however, was by his hand : the great India ink drawing in the Louvre. Added to this we have some studies made from nature for a number of the figures. With these exceptions the work was executed by Giulio Romano, which, even in its present form, is extraordinarily effective. Raphael's peculiar talents would here have been afforded far greater scope than ever be- fore. He was in his element when representing crowds of men thrilled or inspired by one idea. Twa armies (not merely a larger or smaller number of men fighting together), two grand armies were to be painted, upon the victory or defeat of one of which hung the fate of the Roman Empire, and with it that of the Church. The moment was to be represented when Constantino became the victor. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 239 A wall, twice as broad as it was high, was to be covered with a view of the battle. Raphael's art is conspicuous in the division of this enormous surface into three ideal parts, giving to the central division a supreme interest and importance and rendering .the others subordinate, while uniting the three in harmony of impression. In the drawing, by means of powerful shading, Raphael shows so clearly how he designed to treat the subject that, if we did not know, from other of his works, how limited Giulio Romano's capacity was, we should be astonished at the failure to comprehend his master's idea, which led him to exhibit the three parts as one monotonous panorama. Giulio Romano's painting, which is well preserved, is a huge, dreary mass of single figures, no one of which seems executed with any reference to his neighbor. Yet how plainly Raphael's sketch shows that he had intended to subordinate all the details to the great masses in which his picture was to have been divided. Nevertheless, just as it stands, how grand the effect is ! In a special way, through Constantine's Battle, I was again reminded of Raphael's personality, when last in Rome. Outside the Porta Angelica, on the declivity of Monte Mario, he had begun to build a villa for the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici. Broad terraces had been laid out, on the uppermost of which stands the house. Never completely finished, and never lived in, this house has the look of utter neglect. The 240 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. waste-garden around it is overgrown with bushes and shrubs. But climbing up the steep, straight road, and pausing midway, I saw the battle-field, and the spot where Maxentius sank into the river, precisely as sketch and painting show them. The fields still lie undisturbed, as in Raphael's day. The river flows on, bending to the right, between its flat shores ; the bridge, (Ponte Molle), with irregular arch, di- vides* the waters like a kind of dam ; the uncultivated plains stretch out on all sides, girdled in the distance by the Sabiiie mountains, and their range. Raphael may have sketched the view from the very point on which we were standing. From the terrace of his villa, the cardinal saw lying at his feet the field upon which the victory of the Christian Church was de- cided. That the battle did not actually take place on this spot, Count Moltke has demonstrated in his Roman studies, but the event was impressed on the imagination of his people just in the way Raphael pictures it. When the building of the villa came to a stand it was somewhat more nearly finished within than with- out. The ceilings and upper part of the walls of the Loggia, which opens in large arches upon the garden, are painted and covered with ornaments in stucco, while on the outside, the building has never been plastered. This accident of the bricks remain- ing uncovered enables us to see the outlines and sur- faces of the building much more clearly (just as in some portions of the Vatican palace, built by Bra- THE SISTLNE MADONNA. 241 mante). Never have I seen such a grand, almost colossal conception so beautifully adapted to simple household needs. Plainly the cardinal had planned to live in his villa with only a small retinue of ser- vants. A most fascinating example here presents itself of Raphael's originality, united with his use of antique architecture, a triumph of the taste of the day before Michael Angelo's powerful forms pre- vailed, and even in this state of wildness and desola- tion this villa is a better representative of the times than Peruzzi's Farnesina. The inner decorations of the Loggia help in special ways to decide many points in relation to what we consider Raphael's last undertaking ; the excavations and the restoration of the city. It is to be supposed that this work consisted of scientific examination of the ruins ; in distinguishing foundation walls ; taking measurements of what was exhumed ; and in comparison of different authors. A report of these things sent to Leo X.. mistakenly ascribed to Raphael, gives us an idea of the main points in view by those who started the work. We should unite with these learned researches the en- thusiasm of the Romans, who saw in Raphael one divinely commissioned to restore their city. In the Venetian ambassador's letter, announcing Raphael's death, mention is made of " his book," as containing a view of the ruins, as well as plans, for an ideal re- storation of the city. Upon the latter the eyes of the Romans were mainly fixed, and the grandeur and 242 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. beauty of antique Rome became in an ever increasing degree the subject of aesthetic interest. The stucco ornaments on the ceiling of this great Loggia present , besides a variety of scenes from the myth of Galatea, a series of admirably preserved architectural repre- sentations, where, in a perspective, artificially deep- ened and very strong, we have a look into what seems to be an antique temple, filled with statues. Did Raphael here make use of some of the drawings from " his book " ? We can offer only the conjecture. It seems appropriate here to introduce Castiglioni's sonnet on Raphael's death, which was the result of a cold he took while superintending the excavations ; a violent fever set in, and in a few days Raphael was no more. DB MORTE BAPHAELIS PICTOKIS. Quod lacerum. corpus medica sanaverit arte, Hyppolitum, Stygiis et revocavit aquis; Ad Stygias ipse est raptus Epidaurius undas ; Sic pretium vitae mors fuit artifici. Tu quoque dum tuto laniatam corpore Komam Componis miro, Raphael, ingenio ; Atque Urbis lacerum ferro, igni, annisque cadaver, Ad vitam, aiitiquum iam revocasque decus. Movisti superum invidiam, indignataque mors est, Te duduni extinctis reddere posse aniinam Et quod longa dies paullatim aboleverat ; hoc te Mortali spreta lege parare iterum. Sic miser heu, prima cadis interccpte juventa; Deberi et Morti nostraque nosque moiies. THE SISTINE MADONNA. 243 It was consonant with the spirit of Raphael's last work that he should have desired to be buried in the Pantheon, the only remnant of the ancient city not wholly a ruin. The thought of preparing for himself a grave here must early have taken posses- sion of him. Lorenzetto, a sculptor whom he liked executed the Madonna which still to-day stands on the altar close beside his tomb. The stone with Bembo's inscription also still closes the grave which runs sidewise into the wall. Between 1830-40 it was opened, and his bones carefully taken out of the mouldering wooden coffin and laid, properly united, in an antique sarcophagus. A bust of Raphael, executed by Maratta, for the Pantheon was transferred at the beginning of this century to the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol. The numerous likenesses of him we meet with in Italy are in the main taken from this bust, while in Germany, a portrait found in a dilapidated condition in Florence, is copied, although no more worthy of confidence than Maratta's work. A triumph of in- vention in our day has been the bringing to light again the features which Raphael himself represented as his. The technique of fresco-painting requires that the wall be made ready piece by piece, and the colors laid upon the fresh, soft mortar. Here no drawing is possible, but the outlines must be quickly cut into the yielding surface with a sharp-pointed instrument. This is what Raphael did when he in- troduced his own portrait into the School of Athens 244 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. at the right edge of the composition. No part of that picture has suffered so much in the course of cen- turies as this, which, with special care, they have striven to keep clear, or to restore ; but the bad quality of the wall is nowhere so conspicuous as here. Through continual cleaning and re-painting the pic- ture had gradually lost all resemblance to Raphael's actual features. As often as this was said, however, it was just as flatly denied, and not until lately have we had any positive proof to decide the matter. The photographer Braun, of Dornach, discovered the still visible outlines cut in by Raphael's hand, which, hardened in the chalk, had been so often painted over. He threw a blinding light upon the wall wholly from one side, which obliterated all the col- ors and the drawing, and with intense shadows brought out only the unevennesses in the surface of the wall. Thus he succeeded in photographing the genuine outlines engraved by Raphael's hand. They were found to bear no resemblance to any of the por- traits, which, up to this time, have been supposed to be likenesses, with the exception of the wood-en- graving Vasari put into the second edition of his biography, which people have tried to discard as being incorrect. Raphael was thirty-seven years old when he died. Michael Angelo, ten years older than Raphael, lived and worked forty years longer. It was after Ra- phael's death that the creations first came to light, which, as sculptor and painter, raised him to the full THE SISTINE MADONNA. 245 height of his renown. Leonardo's principal works were executed after he was forty years of age. If we consider how much Raphael accomplished in less than twenty years, we cannot fail to be astonished at the immense wealth of his imagination, his energy, and his industry. It was this industry Michael An- gelo extolled as deserving the highest praise. The great sculptor alone, who never rested himself, was able to estimate it. FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. CHAPTER VI. FOUR CENTURIES OF RAPHAEL'S FAME. / . IN HIS WN CENTUR Y. ON the day after Raphael's death (April 6th> 1520), the Mantuan ambassador sent home an ac- count of the sad event. He writes to the Duchess : "Nothing is talked of here but the loss of the man who, at the close of his three and thirtieth year, has now ended his first life : his second, that of his posthumous fame, independent of death, and transitory things, through his works, and in what the learned will write in his praise, must con- tinue forever." What the writer may here have had in mind by the " praise of the learned," is not clear. Floren- tine pens had indeed in the fourteenth century al- ready begun to comment on artists and their works. But these articles could hardly have been classed among scholarly productions. Perhaps the Man- tuan ambassador referred simply to the Latin dis- tiches, in which the sorrow for Raphael's death was 250 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. to find expression. A number of such poems are extant to-day. But if lie had actually foreseen such a biography as was furnished later by Vasari, he could not have overestimated its influence on Raph- ael's fame. It was a happy thought to designate this after fame, which was to be a literary creation, a " second life." I have more than once after the death of a man of genius seen a certain vicissitude in his fame. At the moment of his departure a gap appears, which seems as if it must ever remain open. After a few months it closes, and the world moves on as if he had never lived, whose loss was mourned as irreparable. Years glide away, when suddenly some occurrence recalls the man again to memory. Then by those who scarcely knew him, or by men who never saw him, his image is recreated, his shade rises, once more informed with life, and a " second life " begins which may endure through centuries. The breve in which pope Leo X., in the second year of his reign, elevated Raphael to the position of architect of St. Peter's Church, may be regarded as the earliest testimony to his fame with the Roman people. This breve begins with saying that "the excellent productions of Raphael, as painter, are known to everyone." This was no excessive praise, yet if these works were of such value as to entitle Raphael to become successor to Bramante, the first architect of 'the world, then these simple words ob- tain a most comprehensive meaning. The second testimony concerning Raphael is found in the oft- FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 251 reprinted letter of Celio Calcagnini. Here we read an opinion of his person and public reputation which not only carries conviction to our minds, but gives the feeling that the extraordinary effect of the man did not emanate from his works alone. Celio Calcagnini says nothing to indicate that Raphael was the head of a party ; but letters writ- ten by different persons in the last years of Leo X. seem to show this, without telling us positively whether Raphael organized this party or whether Michael Angelo's opponents had associated together under his name, since next to Michael Angelo he was the first artist in Rome. Leo X., who, when he took Raphael into the sunshine of his favor, ban- ished Michael Angelo, still saw clearly the relation of the men to one another. He said, after Raphael saw Michael Angelo's works in Rome that he aban- doned Perugino's manner and adopted Michael Angelo's. It is important to settle in our minds exactly what Michael Angelo's judgment of Raphael was and how he treated him. Condivi's statements may here be considered trustworthy, for none of those persons who have sought to disparage Condivi as an authority, have given any sufficient reason for undervaluing him. Condivi tells us that when in 1508 the painting of the Sistine Chapel was awarded to Michael Angelo, he declined the task and suggested Raphael. At that time Raphael was still a beginner and almost unknown in Rome. We are aware with what keenness Michael Angelo 252 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. criticized the artists surrounding him. Yet he was the first to recognize Raphael's talent. And far- ther, when the Roman party, upon Raphael's death, insisted that he must demand the walls of the Vati- can, on which Raphael's scholars were at work after their master's drawings, for himself, he made no reply to the letters. (He was at that time in Flo- rence.) And when in old age he was led to speak of Raphael, he said not Raphael's genius but his in- dustry was the cause of his success. To those who understood Michael Angelo's words, this was the highest praise he was capable of bestow- ing. Could these two great artists have lived and worked a few years longer side by side it is conceiv- able that in the isolation to which every person of extraordinary gifts is exposed they might have found and become united to each other. The earliest attempt to write a biographical notice of Raphael is by Giovio ; a brief sketch which re- mained unprinted and first came to light through Tiraboschi in recent days. I do not feel perfectly sure that Giovio wrote this short Vita, or, if he did, at that period. At any rate it is written by some one who knew Raphael personally. We find united three short biographies : Michael Angelo's, Leonar- do's, and Raphael's, written in excellent Latin. It is impossible to tell when these three were first grouped together. Raphael is here assigned the third place. This may have been the general verdict at that time. FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 253 Giovio says that when Raphael began to paint the Camera della Segnatura (1508-9) his artistic repu- tation was not firmly established. Another proof, therefore, that his brilliant success began under Leo X. It is striking how little interest Giovio takes in his works compared with the man. He writes of " the perennial fountain of goodness and sweetness in Raphael's soul, which won for him the favor of the great," descants on his good fortune, which enabled him to display his works at a favor- able moment, and at the grace which distinguishes them. Of the pictures themselves we are only casually reminded ; but of the frescoes in the Ca- mera della Segnatura he mentions only the Par- nassus, where the nine Muses applaud the singing of Apollo. In the second stanza he speaks of a Resur- rection of Christ, thus misinterpreting Peter's De- liverance ; in the third of the inhuman barbarity of Totila, because he connects 1'Incendio del Borgo with Totila. He names correctly the Defeat of Maxentius, and ends by speaking of the Transfigu- ration as Raphael's last and greatest work ; yet even here asserts that the best thing in it is the boy pos- sessed by demons. It is the opinion of a realistic dil- ettante. The tone in which Giovio speaks indicates that he saw in Raphael a young artist whose career was just about to begin when death bore him away. Giovio met Raphael in Rome at the court of Leo X. His praise confirms Calcagnini's enthusiastic words. The advantages allotted by nature to the young 254 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Raphael, he enjoyed to the hour of his death. An artlessness which found its spring in the overflowing wealth of his mind ; an enviable delight in mere ex- istence ; a wish to be serviceable to others ; a voluntary drawing; back that others might have a chance to o o show their ability; and an enjoyment in his own crea- tions greater than any pleasure the world could offer. Raphael's works testify to these qualities in his nature. It was not conscientiousness alone which impelled him constantly to fresh endeavors. Yet with all this his works have something objective. They are not veils drawn over hidden personal feel- ing. Michael Angelo's creations affect us as products of a peculiar power elevated above the world, but in that of Raphael is found no such secret. He possessed the capacity to say everything without saying too much. His works are like flowers whose beauty is their only excuse for being, and no one thinks of ask- ing the special intention of their creator. It is the triumph of artistic achievement when a work of art appears to be simply an expression of nature ; when we are able to set the author aside and place our- selves in close relation to his works as if they existed alone for him and for us. Thirty years had elapsed since Raphael's death when VasariVLives of the most renowned Floren- tine Painters, Sculptors and Architects" appeared. Among them those of Michael Angelo and Raphael are the most important. Raphael died at the time FOUR CEXTUKIES OF FAME. 255 when Vasari, still a child, came to Rome. The city then presented little enough to remind one of the days of Leo X. On the death of Leo succeeded the unfortunate Clement VII., in whose long reign occurred the conquest and sacking of Rome, the ter- rible effects of which remained for years. Under Paul III., new classes had arisen in society to whom art and science were of the first interest. Among these Giovio ranked as an authority. Stimulated by him Vasari was led to begin the literary work on the achievement of which his fame rests to-day. Julius III. filled the papal chair at the time it was pub- lished (1550). Vasari, in composing Raphael's biography, seems to have gone to work in the following way. He made a list of his works, arranged them chronologi- cally, as far as he was able, starting with the pre- sumption, that wherever he found the pictures there Raphael had painted them. He' thus comes to the conclusion that a variety of places, Perugia, Siena, Florence and Rome, had been Raphael's temporary abodes. In the different towns, he mentions the noted people for whom Raphael worked. Being himself an artist he required light and shade for his narrative and distributed them as well as he was able. He speaks of having used letters and other writings by Raphael's hand, but no proof of it ap- pears. Certainly he knew nothing of the letters and documents we have to- had yet discovered in Raphael. Winkelmann brought Raphael forward as the "great master," and won for him enthusiastic reception among the younger generation, who inspired with youthful 278 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. vigor, were hoping 1 for a higher intellectual develop- ment. We now witness a curious phenomenon. Raphael, whose actual productions were almost un- known in Germany, on the authority of a writer is henceforth not only recognized but revered as the "' painter of painters." In the middle of the last century scientific criticism began to assert its influ- ence not alone over the public but over the artists themselves. Not from a study of his works, since he was known to the public only through unsatisfactory engravings, but on the assertions of a few learned men (who were implicitly believed in) Raphael was now accepted as the " great genius," the interpreter of nature, whose secrets he fathomed, every stroke from whose hand was considered a benediction and to draw near to whom seemed the noblest of human duties. Among the priests of this cult we find the young Goethe. Winkelmann prepared the way for the Raphael enthusiasm, and his fresh, sensitive nature caught the glow. In the middle of the eighteenth century Germany offered virgin soil to Raphael. Only a dim histor- ical conception of him had existed before the publi- cation of Winkelmann's book. Diirer made a note on an excellent drawing, sent him by Raphael, to the effect that it was given him by the artist who was " so highly esteemed by the pope." In his diary of the Netherland journey he mentions Raph- ael's death. He inquires of one of his scholars what has become of the works he left behind. Per- FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 279 haps Diirer saw the cartoons designed for the tapestries which had been just finished in the Netherlands; no mention of them, however, is found in his notes. Sandrart in his Deutscher Akademie speaks with due esteem of Raphael, and quotes Vasari's stories about him ; but no special feeling for his works had yet been awakened either in him or in other Ger- mans, nor was there any change in this respect up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. Knobels- dorf, the good genius of Frederick the Great in his youth, writes almost ironically about the Transfigu- ration (1736). He says : " The Saviour is being carried up to heaven on a Siberian cold breeze, while the crowd in the foreground are gazing with wonder at the antics of one possessed with the devil/' The cultivated portion of the German na- tion was at that time under the control of France whose aesthetic views preponderated in Europe. Voltaire knew little or nothing of Raphael ; even his name is seldom met with in his writings. Raphael and Michael Angelo were words which conveyed a sound to the ears without having any definite idea connected with them. When Montesquieu, at the end of his Esprit des Lois, by way of example, named them in contrast to one another, he certainly knew little enough about their works. What could Raphael be to this epoch ? Boucher, the most emi- nent of the Parisian masters, le peintre des delices, gave to one of his German scholars, who, having 280 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. won the first prize in the French Academy, was about to depart for Italy, the advice not to remain too long in Rome, where only Guido Reni's and Albani's works were worth studying ; for Raphael, in spite of his fame, was un peintre bicn triste. But what had Boucher himself known of Raphael in Rome? He was there in 1725, at a time when the scholars of the French Roman Academy were almost wholly excluded from the Vatican. If these were the kind of precepts the Germans shared in Paris, they certainly would have received no better at home. Protestant, or, as Goethe calls it, 'chaotic Germany" valued only the pictures of the Netherlander. The religious life of North Germany had accustomed the public, thoroughly in sympathy with it, to regard Italian art lightly, and even a visit to Italy did not eradicate this first impression. Goethe's father had made the journey to Rome. The raptures he there experienced were ever after so viv- idly before his mind that his son's longing for Italy is to be ascribed to his father's stories and diaries, which inspired the children with the anticipation of finding a land where all aesthetic longings would be satisfied. With Goethe's father the saying originated that " whoever had once seen Rome, could never again be quite unhappy." Before the eyes of the children in the parental home at Frankfort hung the dark, powerful engravings by Piranesi, which even to-day give the best idea of romantic, modern Rome. In his father's accounts, however, Raphael and the FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 281 antique held small place. The standard in the family, when it concerned a practical manifestation of enthusiasm for art, was the French Netherland taste. In this direction the old Goethe made pur- chases, gave commissions, and educated his son ; and we have seen how lasting were these first impres- sions. When a Leipsic student, Lessing's Laocoon fell into his hands, and Winckehnann's friend, the engraver Oeser, began to have an influence over him, the longing for a sight of genuine artistic creations grew upon him so powerfully, he was led to under- take the secret journey to Dresden, so sweetly de- scribed in " Dichtung und Wahrheit/' Here in the gallery was first revealed to him the impotence of mere theoretic enthusiasm. Goethe found less de- light in the classic works themselves than in Less- ing's and Winckehnann's criticism of them. Stand- ing before the actual things he was perplexed, and set aside the great Italian masters to admire the realistic Netherlander and the Italians of the De- cline, whom he had been educated at home to under- stand. Raphael's Sistine Madonna ought to have risen upon him like a glorious sun ; but he passed over it in the records of his journey. It is the gen- eral opinion that this Madonna, like a conquering army, came to win over Germany to Raphael. The luke-warm reception which it found in Dresden is a striking proof of the lack of feeling among us at that time for the great master. Netherland artists were the rage in Dresden. Possibly Winckehnann's 282 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. opponents, whom he left behind on going to Italy, may have created a prejudice against the picture. The Dresden authorities averred that the child on the arm of the mother was ordinary by nature and looked ill-tempered. The two angels below the Ma- donna were said to have been added by a pupil. It was even asserted in regard to the Madonna her- self, that the first colors had been laid on by an assistant, or worse still, that it was not a work of Raphael at all. It is possible that Goethe through his acquaintance with the gallery officials, was drawn into the current, and had not the strength to defend his finer perception. At any rate, this personal experience did not lessen his enthusiasm when writing of Raphael. His very first words concerning a work by Raphael, even be- fore entering Rome, indicates this point of view. In Bologna he sees the St. Cecilia, and on the 18th of October, 1786, writes home about it. The guide book in use at that time, and gladly accepted by Goethe, was Volkmaiin's, containing fundamentally only what Cochin, the author of a similar French book, had said. Albani, sometime before, had ob- jected to the St. Cecilia, on the ground that per- sons were here brought together who were not con- temporaries. Cochin picked this up, and Volkmann copied it. But a more foolish objection could not have been trumped up, since the arbitrary grouping of characters, widely sundered in point of time and of all ages, the painting of the so-called " conversazioni FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 283 sante," was an every-day task imposed upon the artists in the Cinque and /Seicento. I will quote a page from Goethe's letter, showing how independently he opposed this criticism : " And first of the St. Ce- cilia," he writes, " what 1 expected beforehand, I now saw with my own eyes ; Raphael has always succeeded in doing what others have only longed to do, and it is unnecessary to say more of this work than that it is by him. Five saints here stand side by side, of no personal interest to us, but so perfect in their living presence that we desire immortality for the picture, even if contented to be resolved to dust ourselves. In order, however, to appreciate Raphael properly, to value him rightly and at the same tune not to adore him quite as a god, who, like Melchisedek, had appeared without father or mother, we must consider his predecessors, his models. These took the preparatory steps on the firm soil of truth ; they laid the broad basis with earnestness, yes, with fear and anxiety, and competing with one another, raised the pyramid layer by layer to the summit until, at last, inspired with heavenly genius, Raphael came to place the stone on the apex, over or beside which no other can stand." And now Goethe goes back to Perugino and Francia. In presence of this work it is impossible for him to limit himself to the given case ; he conceives the picture as a historical event, will know from wiience it derived its origin, and what harmonious combi- nation must have called it forth. The comparative 284 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. method was natural to Goethe. He proceeds in the world of art just as he had in the realm of science, in botany or anatomy. To be sure, it was almost twenty years later ere he attained the knowledge of the leading points of view for a true comprehension of modern art, as a whole, but he had intrinsic per- ception of them from the first. On finally reaching Rome, 1786, he finds in Raphael, as it were, a friend he had long known, with whom he lives from this time forth until his death in uninterrupted intercourse. The other great masters arrest his attention now and then, but Raphael is always equally near to him. He is always hungry for him: the advent of a new engraving from a work by Raphael tempts him to leave studies in which he will not be disturbed for any other con- sideration. We may say with some exaggeration, and yet with truth, that Goethe's Italian journey was undertaken for the purpose of studying Raphael and the antique. This journey contains an ac- count of the means he adopted to educate himself up to both : step by step we go with him here and feel at the close that he has mastered the whole. We follow him as he is gradually absorbed in the study of Raphael's works. We become acquainted not only with his relation to Raphael, but to the whole epoch ; to the antique, and to the golden age of the renaissance. The change of opinion, for which Winckelmann and Mengs (who were no longer living) had prepared the way, was accom- FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 285 plished. Not only Goethe's friends in Rome, but all who went to Rome at that time, cherished these views. Auspicious days for Raphael returned at last. From the dawn of the Cinquecento the progress in Art had described a bow-line ; at first leading far- ther and farther away from him, and now in its course meeting him again. Cultured men of all nations sympathized in longing after the simply human and natural. Simplicity should take the place of the artificial, fantastic and overloaded. A world of fresh, youthful souls revolved about Goethe, whose inspiration was to create new things in this sense. David represented the young artists of France at this time, Canova the Italian, Angelica Kaufmann the German. And this new conception was not re- stricted to the plastic arts, but intellectual products of all kinds struck into the same path : Gluck's " Iphi- genia" reveals the same in music, Goethe's "Iphi- genia " in poetry. We no longer find solitary individuals turning to Raphael in their studies ; the pursuit had become universal. The literature of the four European na- tions, each having its own writers, and vastly more independent of one another than in former ages, now treated of Raphael as an historical element, and a knowledge of him was pre-supposed. His works were rendered attainable to ever-widening circles through excellent engravings, and the frescoes in the Vatican stanze, the existence of which was scarcely known 286 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. to the great public fifty years earlier, now ranked as his most important productions. In Raphael men separated the Madonna painter, the delineator of Old and New Testament scenes, and the creator of his- torical compositions. They compared his methods in the different stages of his development, and at last a personal interest in him was again manifest. Never- theless up to this time no one had thought of writing a life of Raphael ; they tried to make him more gen- erally known by circulating Vasari's legends and by bringing into general chronologic order the manifold works bearing his name, but not mentioned by Va- sari. Particularly valuable for us, beside Goethe's writings, is what Moritz and Fernow wrote at that time. The climax of enthusiasm and labor in this direction appears in a systematic review of Raphael printed in the "Propylaen," for which Meyer, Goethe's art friend, collected the material, and which represents nearly the extent of what Goethe had made his own concerning Raphael up to the begin- ning of the new century. Soon, however, Goethe outgrew these first impressions. The complete met- amorphosis wrought in the political and intellect- ual life of Europe, less by the French Revolution than by the violent eruption of Napoleonic energy, was to result (although no thought of the great artist mingled with the warring elements) in deter- mining what we may now in truth term Raphael's relation to mankind. FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 287 ///. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. The French Revolution presents the strange spec- tacle of the first artistic talent of the day actively participating in the general overthrow and meta- morphosis of things. At the beginning of the ex- citement, and while the nation still hoped to get on with the king, David was the rising artist who attracted to himself all eyes. At this time he painted " Le Sernient du Jeu de Patime." During the Reign of Terror he belonged to the mad adherents of Robespierre, painted the murdered Marat, and instigated abolishing the French Acad- emy of Arts.* Under Napoleon, as first court painter of the Emperors, David was producer of artistic works as well as representative leader in operations. He had caused or sanctioned the demoniacal destruction of everything pertaining to royalty, which set in with the rule of the Terror- ists over France and extended in some measure to Italy and the Rhine-lands ; and this same man later, as illustrator of Napoleon's triumphs, dedicated his talents to him who, out of boundless chaos, again created order. One thing it had lain beyond the power of the French people to destroy : its own character ! On * After the storming of the Tuileries, David sought out the bodies of the handsomest Swiss who had fallen, and ordered them carried to his atelier. Bachtold, p. 29. Joh Caspar (Swiss). 288 THE LIKE OF RAPHAEL. this, like Louis XIV. before him, Napoleon now founded his Empire. He, as little as the king pro- tected artists, or united the greatest works, which had been produced in all ages, in the Musee Napo- leon, from any peculiar personal delight he felt in them ; the pursuit of these things was part of his grand plan. If France, newly organized, was to assume the sovereignty of the world, which now seemed her mission, all the faculties of the nation must be called out and the way opened for the freest development of every talent. A national Napoleonic art must be created which in Paris should find its centre. Louis XIV. had subordinated the art-life of Paris to Rome ; but Napoleon resolved on trans- porting Rome to Paris. Even as concerned mate- rial, Paris was to furnish everything. After Napo- leon had won David to himself, who went over not as a hireling, biit from pure enthusiasm, his next triumph was to make Canova recreant to the pope. The antique was supposed at this time to have re- ceived fresh interpretation through Canova, and he ranked as the first sculptor in Europe. Canova and David had all the young people of that day at their feet. David had studied Raphael in Italy. We meet with figures here and there in his compositions which remind us of Raphael ; but he cannot be designated one of his disciples in the spirit. He was already a finished master when Raphael's pic- tures were placed in the Louvre, and it was too late FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 289 for him to be greatly influenced. If the Emperor had been able to lay his hands upon all the pictures by Raphael which existed in Europe his collection would have been a different one ; yet the paintings Spain and Italy were forced to surrender sufficed (together with those France already possessed) to make an overpowering impression. Never have so many of Raphael's works been united in one place, and the sight will not be surpassed until a World's Exhibition of Raphael's productions is opened ; an enterprise which sooner or later will be carried out, and for which, on account of its immortal fres- coes, Rome must seem the proper place. This fresh triumph for Raphael had been as little designed as was that one of a hundred and fifty years earlier : the pictures stood there and were gazed at. The result followed naturally. David felt it. His decline dates from the hour of Raphael's appearance in the Louvre. Ingres, who ruled French art for long years after David, and who had as a youth (trusting to the guidance of his own instincts) devoted him- self to Raphael with an energy which never faltered or flagged throughout his whole life, made the great master supremely valued in France. It is only lately since the printing of Ingres' most heartfelt utterances that we have been able to trace the growth of his passion for Raphael. The sight of the paintings in the Napoleonic Museum determined his future career. When a boy of twelve years of age he had pounced upon Raphael like a wild crea- 290 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. ture. Ingres' first undoubted success was his large picture of Louis XIII. taking the oath, which con- secrated himself and his country to the Madonna. Here the Virgin is so like one of Raphael's Ma- donnas that it would almost seem as if Raphael had come to life again in France. Ingres calls Raphael "a heaven-descended spirit who, presiding over Rome, radiated the beams of beauty to all nations." " Raphael," exclaims Ingres, " was not only the greatest of painters, he was beauty itself : he was good, he was everything." Later, Ingres was ap- pointed Director of the French Academy in Rome ; and Raphael never enjoyed such a triumphant posi- tion in the public estimation as during his adminis- tration. The reverence of Ingres for Raphael was be- queathed to Flandrin, his most distinguished pupil, an artist weaker in point of talent and with less self-direction. Ingres stood on his own feet. Like Raphael he had a variously-gifted nature. He in- troduced music and literature into the realm of his art as indispensable accessories. He regarded painting as a national religion, as in France a manifestation of the soul of the French people, and believed himself its high priest. Boucher-Desnoyers was his contemporary, whose engravings of Raph- ael's pictures are the finest reproductions of them. Plates like his Madonna di Foligno, or the Belle Jardiniere had never been made before. Loveliest of all, even to-day, is his Madonna della Sedia, al- though so unpretending as compared with our larger FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 291 and more elaborate engravings. These plates, issued in Napoleon's time, first spread Raphael's renown over Europe. The attempt was also made to fur- nish a complete collection of his works in outline. * Even the breaking up of the Louvre Museum proved of advantage to Raphael. When returned to their old places the pictures had a more pow- erful effect than before they were captured by the French. Each one of them had been subjected to the closest examination ; and carefully restored works of art, in changing owners, are usually ex- posed to fresh criticism. Grouped together, as they were in the Louvre, the effect of the productions, as a whole, had made an indelible impression on the art-loving European public. Their author, enthroned above them like a sovereign, was worshipped as the first painter of Europe by innumerable admirers. In the days of the Restoration, when men sang of times such as never existed (the phenomenon known in Germany as the reign of the younger Romanticists), Raphael was held up as a special object for this cultus. Religion had been again made a public institution. But even previous to this Raphael's Madonnas in the Louvre had possessed an influence far beyond that of mere works of art. These sweet, guileless faces had helped to sustain the power of the church over the souls of the peo- ple, while Raphael himself, as a historical charac- ter, threw fresh lustre on the history of the popes. * By Landers. 292 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. Renewed appreciation of Raphael in Rome was the result of all this under circumstances which render it necessary for us to turn our attention to German Art. Under the Empire, it was a matter of course to go to Paris for an artistic education. Yet, even then, Rome, despoiled as she was, had not logt everything. If the pedestals alone remained in the Vatican to show where the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocobn, and other renowned works had stood, the French Emperor's commissions given to Canova were executed in Rome. We see Thorwaldsen and Rauch making rapid progress there under Canova's influence. Painters, also, began to turn their steps thither. Talented young Germans (not exactly scholars of any particular school), endowed with artistic natures, and urged on by the consciousness of a special, though somewhat undefined aim, went to Rome and surrendered themselves to the inspira- tion of such works as the French had left, either because they could not wrench them from the walls, or because they did not consider them worth run- ning off with. Modest wall pictures assumed a new value. Frescoes of the Quattrocento cover the walls in churches, hospitals, and palaces, which, until that moment, had stood almost unheeded ; but now, freed from competition with nobler productions, were re- garded as striking phenomena. Had not Raphael in his early days felt their influence ? Up to this time the story of Raphael's youth had FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 293 been more like a chapter in fiction than one in art history. The pleasing incidents Vasari relates of his childhood and years of apprenticeship, tell us only of Raphael personally, and throw little light on his works. As early as 1568, the great inter- polation came into his biography, in which Raphael is characterized as a kind of heavenly being, and apostrophized in the tone of a prayer. It was not until the end of the century, however, that the legends arose in which he is described as having all his life a youthful, almost child-like, beauty. Tisch- bein describes him as on first coming to Rome, in 1508, where he was presented to Julius II. He knelt down before him, his blond locks falling upon his- shoulders: "He is an innocent angel," said the pope. "I will give him Cardinal Beinbo for a, teacher, and he shall fill my walls with historical pictures." When, subsequently, Julius saw the Dis- puta finished, he threw himself upon the ground, and exclaimed, with uplifted hands : " I thank Thee, Great God, that thou hast sent me so great a, painter ! ' Appreciation of this kind, however, had in the first centuries no influence OH the universal judgment ; because, in spite of it, the productions of his riper years under Leo X. ranked as his greatest achievements, to which all the rest were considered as only preparatory steps. But the young Germans in the beginning of the nineteenth century, working- together in Rome, judged his productions differ- ently; they said the works under Leo were a de- 294 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. dine, and that those of his youth were his most sublime efforts ; that his inspired days were before he entered Rome. What he possibly created in his father's house, or in Perugia, or Florence, alone in- terested them. To penetrate more deeply into the spirit of this early time, and of that of the modest painters who may have been Raphael's models, was the most earnest wish of their hearts. The Raphael they adored had little in common with him whose works in Paris at that time enraptured the rest of the world. So long 1 as the principal Roman pictures remained in the Louvre, the young Germans, known as Naza- renes, were allowed to teach and work undisturbed ; but, on the return of these pictures, when the art connoisseurs of Europe once more assembled in Rome, their position was changed. They were looked upon as odd fish enough. Overbeck was painting Madonnas, outwardly counterfeiting Raphael's Flor- entine Madonnas so nearly as to seem like their pale foster sisters, or such as Raphael might have painted had he lived into a childish old age. The Nazarenes wished that Cornelius, who, up to this time, had held the same direction, should now close his mind against fresh incitement to a study of the old masters and the antique. Cornelius, however, went over to the pagan Raphael, and for the moment it did seem, indeed, as if it were all over with the Nazarenes. How little this was really the case we shall soon see. FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 295 The band of Nazarenes, before leaving Germany, had espoused a creed ready made for them, not by artists, but by writers ; and they adhered steadfastly to their views. The movement had some impor- tance from the fact that Goethe took his stand on the side of those who were opposed to them. Ludwig Tieck, in his artist novel, " Sternbald's Wanderings," paints youthful artists traveling about the world in the times of Diirer and Raphael, visit- ing Nuremberg, Antwerp, and Rome, and conjures up the ghosts of those who had already done mis- chief enough in their own century. Tieck, in truth, knew nothing of art history, and his novel is a series of day dreams. We find in his book the characters of Diirer, Raphael, and Michael Angelo falsely represented, but in a popular way. Raphael's perennial, angelic youth, the tender-heartedness of Diirer, the never-ending aesthetic sermons of the great sculptor, fascinated the soft soul of the Ger- man public, and the boy Raphael from this time began to play a role in the dreams of gifted young artists. Religious enthusiasm added fuel to the flame. Men longed for Rome. Whoever was allowed to breathe the air streaming from the holy places fancied that Madonnas like those of Raphael's would be easily painted there. In this faith the Nazarenes had set out on their pilgrimage to Rome. They sought to rise into mystical communion with the young Raphael. At this time pictures of his private life began to appear, and artists of all na- 296 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. tions made it their first duty to draw or paint them ; for the Nazarenes were not alone in cherishing such views. In these scenes Raphael figures as the God- like boy. Slender and willowy, pathetic in every motion, in a close-fitting dress, imitating the so- called "Altdeutsche," the broad collar never omitted, he stands before his easel, surrounded by a reverent circle eager to watch the genesis of his miraculous creations. But the most dangerous quality attributed by this school to the false Raphael was of a spiritual nature. According to them his productions were the work of fingers obedient to an unconscious, creative impulse. We see this conceit pursued to the farthest by Achim von Arnim, in his novel of " Raphael and His Friends," where the painter is represented as sunk in a magnetic sleep, yet directing the hand and brush of his assistant Baviera, who in this way completes the work. Raphael paints with closed^ eyes and without touching his own hand to the pic- ture. A large number of persons found pleasure in such eccentricities. Goethe's Faust contained so much in harmony with the views of the Nazarenes that they might well consider him one of them until the publication of his " Italian Journey " taught them better. Here Goethe gives for the first time (1817) his Raphael creed and all that belonged to it. This book chiefly determined the opinion of the German public. For a time, naturally, the Nazarenes were unpop- FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 297 ular in Rome and Germany, but in spite of this, later, their conception of Raphael came to light again. It was to a great extent affected by na- tional views, for we see, notwithstanding the amount of valuable art material contained in the " Italian Journey," "Winckelmann and his Century," and the translation of the " Life of Benvenuto Cellini," how limited even Goethe's resources were when com- pelled to give a decided opinion. He had not been in Rome since 1787 ; had never seen the Museum of the Louvre, and with the exception of brief visits to Dresden and Munich, had no opportunity to become acquainted with large collections ; nor did he live in a city which possessed such treas- ures. Had he been able to command richer mate- rial he would, with his wonderful gift for describing works of art, as well as finding his way through the labyrinths of history, have given us something very different. If Goethe had been in Rome in 1817 he would have judged the productions of the Nazarenes quite differently. Read in his essay, "Antik und Modern," the comparison of Raphael, Leonardo, and Michael Angelo. It is impossible to give their main characteristics more simply and cor- rectly, but his art-historical efforts remained the labors of a solitary amateur who never tried to form a school. In Rome, after the Napoleonic wars, it was the French again who occupied the first place. The Italians, although having a variety of things to 298 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. show, which, like Lanzi's large art history, take an honorable place, had not been able to produce any- thing which would bear comparison with Seroux d'Agincourt's grand work. With an astounding amount of labor and difficulty, Seroux d'Agincourt had collected material from all sources and of every kind and he has laid the foundation for the historical scientific pursuit of art in our day. Henri Beyle, or Stendhal (his nom de plume), formerly an officer in Napoleon's army, had made Italy his adopted country, and wrote, beside ro- mances, works on Italian art life, among which his " Promenades in Rome " are the most distinguished. These are diaries running over twenty years. We feel with what freedom the past, present, and future were discussed. If Raphael could have returned to life he must, in the days of Stendhal, have felt him- self as much at home in Rome as in his own day. Unhappily, his history of Italian painting closes before Raphael. This is the more to be regretted because the per- son on whom it next devolved to prepare a life of Raphael was satisfied to win for a superficial work the praise any one would have gained in that day, who had written an attractive biography of the great painter. Quatremere de Quincy, Membre de 1'Institut, wrote the book, whose appearance in 1824 was consid- ered as an event in Rome. It gives a lightly sketched review of Raphael's labor, and a description of the works, with just what is essential and no more for an FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 299 interested reader who is nevertheless not a special student. Elegant and superficial, he furnishes ma- terials suited to the salon, in which at that time Raphael was the main subject of discussion. Quatremere's production deserved the applause it met with on its first appearance, as well as the obliv- ion into which it has fallen. He insists on believing in the pedigree of the Santi family, found on a por- trait of one of Raphael's pretended ancestors in the Albani palace.* That he was willing to deceive himself would not have been so bad ; but whilst he was repeating these things in 1824, Pungileoni had two years before (in 1822) published his "Elogio Storico," of the father of the great Raphael, Gio- vanni Santi, in which he had given the correct genealogy of the family, taken directly from the archives in Urbino. Quatremere, living and writing in Paris, the works of Pungileoni printed in an out of the way corner of Italy, might have escaped his notice. Rumohr's reproach weighs much more heavily. He accuses him of knowing nothing of Vasari's book, except the life of Raphael, and there- fore he had no idea of the numerous assertions and statements scattered throughout it which related to him. Quatremere's book is no longer considered an authority even among the French. It would have been * The numerous relations of Raphael noted down upon it belong to all positions in life, a painter even, beside his father, is among them. (Belloir, ed. 1752, p. 63). A letter informs me that this portrait is to-day in the Villa Albani. I did not see it there myself. 300 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. mere play for Pungileoni at this time to have writ- ten the life of Raphael; but he neglected it. And now at last German erudition came to the front. In the early stages of German scientific research in Rome, we are indebted for much labor devoted to Raphael to the same men who planned a grandly comprehensive description of the city. Bunsen's and Gerhard's names should here always be the first men- tioned.* Platner undertook the chapter devoted to modern art. The book was to embrace everything that related to the eternal city. Starting with a geological investigation of the soil on which she stood, it was to close only with an account of every event up to the most recent vicissitudes in her his- tory. Winckelmann's Roman life had been so naturally and necessarily connected with the advance of Ger- man philology, that from the time of his death Ger- mans were found in Rome continuing to work on in his path ; most conspicuous among these is Zoega, who, although a Dane by birth, must be regarded as a German. Like Winckelmann, antique and mod- ern art were to him inseparable ; but the opportunity was not granted him to do anything for modern art, so many tasks forced themselves upon him in the realm of the antique. In the beginning of our century the German Asso- ciation in Rome, devoted to scientific aims, but * Cotta published this work. It is one of his titles to renown as a bookseller. FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 301 which, of course, included the artists, found in Wil- helm von Humboldt its first visible head. Through him Prussia rose to be the natural patron of these labors ; a mission she has ever since fulfilled. From Humboldt's day scholars and artists have felt themselves an authorized element in Rome, and the Institute is acknowledged by the Prussian government as an ideal preparatory school for the farther pursuit of art and science at home. This Institute, which grew up naturally, fills the same place towards Germany in Rome as the French Academy, regularly formed and sustained by the French gov- ernment, towards France. Individual members were wholly untrammelled, but all the more firmly united in the national task of gathering up what related to the classic period of the city from its earliest date. Niebuhr developed Humboldt's ideas, and to him Cornelius was indebted for another comprehension of Raphael. To Niebuhr succeeded Bunsen, and the generation is only just passing away who ex- perienced his stimulating power. Bunsen was the originator of the History of the City of Rome. In- spired by him both writers and the public were roused to the importance of the undertaking. The first vol- ume contains the development of the Roman school of painting, biographies of Raphael and Michael Angelo, with descriptions of their works in a some- what dry, but appropriate style ; the design being to give a picture of their influence on their own cen- tury. Bunsen himself made the happy discovery of 302 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. the disposition of the Raphael tapestries in the Sis- tina, the first task of this kind, which, in respect to Raphael, had been started and solved in the spirit of true erudition. There was no lack of new mate- rial about Raphael. Fea's Researches, in the Vati- can archives, for instance, had brought to light bills and estimates of Raphael's. Had this first volume been published separately what it contains about Raphael alone would have ensured it a far wider cir- culation. The succeeding ones also contain much valuable suggestion in regard to him, but a strain of peculiarly elevating scientific enthusiasm breathes from the pages of this first part. It aims to master Rome in the noblest sense. Almost all the mate- rial has since appeared in other forms, yet I would advise every one to read this volume before entering Rome for the first time. To this circle of intellectual and scholarly men in Rome, belonged C. F. von Rumohr. He had one of those large natures, which is, to a writer, if com- bined with the necessary working power, his most precious gift. He critically exposed the insuffi- ciency of Quatremere's work, but was unable, not- withstanding, to write a book which deserved any more truly to be called a biography of Raphael. He has, therefore, given his attempt a modest title, promising no more than it contains, viz., Raphael and his Contemporaries. Properly speaking, it is no biography ; it is a criticism of Raphael's works chronologically arranged, the aggregate result of a FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 303 life-long study of the master, the assertions of a connoisseur of the very first rank, who, in sover- eign self-reliance freely criticises the opinions of others. Of all who have ever written about Ra- phael, Rumohr has the fullest and most comprehen- sive knowledge, besides being the best writer. He sees in Raphael one of the factors in the grand scheme of human development, and tries to define his constant participation in it. Rumohr seems to have furnished the prolegomena to a life of Raph- ael which was to be expected either from his pen or another's. Fifty years ago (in 1830) every one in Rome and Germany was prepared to ensure rec- ognition and support to the highest art-historical production. Why could not Dr. Gage have writ- ten this book, or Drs. Kugler or Waagen, who had apparently equipped themselves for just such an un- dertaking? Rumohr, disgusted with the lukewarm reception and senseless criticism of his performance, would go no further. And now, by a curious acci- dent, the sect of Nazarenes, driven so far into the back-ground, sends to the front the man who under- takes to write Raphael's history, and succeeds in making himself an authority to whom even Rumohr must succumb, " Passavant, from Frankfort on the Main," who had been first inspired for the great task by the sight of Raphael's works in the Napo- leon Museum. Passavant's "Life of Raphael of Urbino and of his father, Giovanni Santi,"came out between 1839-56, in three volumes, and after 304 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. having made its way in Germany, gained a Euro- pean renown, through the French translation and re-modelling by Paul Lacroix, published in 1860. Passavant and Vasari are the two biographers of Raphael. In the introduction Passavant reviews the works of his predecessors. Rumohr, he opines, in no wise comes up to the expectations raised by his two first volumes of Italian Researches. In this deprecia- tion of Rumohr, Passavant criticises himself. We shall see how far he was justified or capable of mak- ing such a criticism. The value of Passavant's work is in the second volume especially ; that is, in the French revision of it now almost exclusively used. It will remain a master-piece of German industry. Passavant's name is intimately associated in our age with Raphael's, and a reflection of the glory of the master falls upon the brow of his successful bio- grapher. But we are forced to give quite a different opinion of the first volume, which contains the narrative. It cannot but seem strange to us that this weak, bung- ling composition could have been so over-valued. Peculiar circumstances, however, account for it. At the time when the book appeared many emi- nent Nazarenes were still living, though not in con- spicuous positions before the public, Overbeck, the fountain head, Veit, Schnorr, and others. But that they were a party, who had once striven for the leadership in German art, had died out of public FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 305 recollection. Hence Passavant's openly pronounced Nazarene views awakened neither concern nor con- tradiction. Men considered his stand-point in the main a personal one, to which he was impelled by an idiosyncrasy. A biography of Raphael had been demanded ; Rumohr soared too high. Quatremere was too superficial, but here was ' one who supplied the want. It was assumed a priori that Passavant had penetrated deeper than any one before him into the mysteries of Raphael's existence. Men took for the result of pure child-like views of life what in reality was only a repetition of the old articles of belief. Raphael's spirit, according to Passavant, was far too mighty for his body, and the pressure brought to bear upon the delicate frame at last shattered and destroyed it. In conformity with this view he groups the other characters about him. Julius II. is made to assume the role of moral re- former in Rome, and Leo X. is exhibited in the same light. As from smoke of incense and conse- crated candles, a stifling breath emanates from many of the pages of this book. Raphael's childish years in Urbino and Perugia, were, according to Passa- vant, his lovely golden age. His father, Giovanni Santi, in his opinion, ranks so deservedly beside his son as to justify putting his name also on the title- page of his book. And here it should be taken into account how much had come to light through Pun- gileoni's discoveries to vastly enhance the interest in Raphael's early days. People were no longer re- 306 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. ferred simply to Vasari, but could form their own myths, based on fresh statements in the documents which had just been hunted up. Pungileoni was the first to reconstruct the family history from the archives, the quarrels after the death of the old Giovanni, the bad character of the step-mother, etc., all of which Passavant now borrows. Passavant as- serts that he found all this material in the archives, but I doubt it; he has compiled extracts from the documents which Pungileoni had published at differ- ent times in little books, of which no one in Ger- many had any knowledge. In his long years of literary labor, Passavant did so much for art, and his second volume is such an excellent production that the defects we find in him, as a historian, may be openly discussed. He was incapable of taking a historical view. When the question concerns the qualities of a picture, whether it be genuine or spurious, he is intelligent and of weight ; but with regard to the sources of the history of the Cinquecento, he knows literally nothing. He has scraped together his dates here and there. His conception of Raphael is tradi- tional, while from the Nazareiies he has caught the sentimental tones of the old chroniclers. Read the letter in which Overbeck informs Veit of the dis- covery of the grave in the Pantheon containing the remains of Raphael ! You would suppose them to be the bones of a saint, from the manner in which it is worded. FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 307 But Passavant's work (first and second volume) was joyfully welcomed and accepted with faith. There was still only a small community in Ger- many making a study of Kaphael. The romantic period was not yet quite outlived. When Corne- lius was ordered to paint the history of art in the Loggia of the Munich Pinakothek, he pictured Raphael's development according to the Nazarene conception. Raphael again appears as the great Madonna painter. His mythological productions recede into the background. Men dreamed of him as encompassed by holy visions. The picture to be found in the Academy of San Luca, in Rome, now considered a wretched daub, which represents St. Luke sitting before the easel, gazing at the Madonna, who floats toward him into the atelier, whilst Raphael, in the background, as a sort of ap- prentice to the Evangelist, becomes partaker in the scene, best illustrates the aesthetic view of him at that time. What of the earthly in his existence could not be got rid of was enveloped in a certain haze, which in part veiled and in part transformed it. But the important fact respecting Passavant's book and the contemporary art criticism is that it was aU written before the days of photography, when Raphael's sketches could only with difficulty be consulted. In order to test and register these drawings Passavant was obliged to travel from col- lection to collection. He may have seen all the 308 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. sketches to which he refers, but, if so, he can have had only a cursory look at many of them. The existing fac-similes, which alone at that time ad- mitted of comparative studies, were inexact ; recollec- tion must do the greater part, and errors constantly crept in. Without the help of the drawings, which in many cases are more important than the pictures themselves, and which in all cases are to be regarded as indispensable, positive interpretation of the com- positions, the history of their growth, and their chronology cannot be established. It was the Eng- lish who first called in the aid of photography to furnish the material needed. We have once before spoken of England in con- nection with the Dorigny engravings from the tap. estry cartoons. Before trying to define, however, the role which the English, in the last century and our own, played with respect to Eaphael, let n;c briefly recapitulate what, up to this time, had been mainly furnished by the Italians, French, and Ger- mans. The Italians, working on uninterruptedly in their own passionate way, felt more or less attracted to Raphael according to the caprice of their creative impulse, even at times going so far as to disown him altogether. The literature of the Italians has scarcely ever reflected the general tone of the nation : it has been far too greatly oppressed to be a true expression of public opinion. An historical literature, therefore, such as other nations possessed, FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 309 could not grow up in Italy, and the same held true of art history. In Lemonnier's Florentine edition of Vasari, the editors, as they gratefully acknowl- edge, have simply made use of Passavant. But in one direction Italy was productive, in essays and pamphlets written for and against the genuineness of single works attributed to Raphael. Under the guise of pure scholarly interest, questions were dis- cussed to which the vanity of a few owners of col- lections, the pride of cities, or the chance of making money (especially the latter) were the real incen- tives. But since the champions for the great master generally won the day, an increase of the so-called pictures by Raphael was the result, the rejection of which pictures again makes an important brancli of the scholarly labor of to-day. The French literary productions were injured by the fact that the writers were adherents of Roman Catholicism, which was and is the main-spring of art-historical inquiry in France. Passavant's stand- point harmonized with these views, and the popu- larity of the French translation of his book is in truth largely to bo ascribed to this circumstance. Rio plagiarizes Passavant ; Gruyer, whenever, from his rambling, rhetorical flights, he comes down to> solid earth, quotes Passavant ; Clement makes a, direct abstract of Passavant's book, while Vitet, giving the reins to his imagination, presents little more than historic visions. But art historians did not cover the whole field; Ingres' biography has 310 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. been already mentioned. Flandrin, Delacroix, David d' Angers, and others give their opinion in letters and reminiscences of every kind which were published and show what an actual ingredient Raphael had become in the intellectual life of both artists and public. Copies of his works continually sent from Rome to Paris also testify to this, as well as the excellent plates made from them by French en- gravers. It was the Germans who first recognized Ra- phael's world-historical position. Guided, however, more by general ideas than by active practical re- search, for which they lacked the educating mate- rial, they felt Raphael rather than knew how to prove from his works the faith that was in them. Professional art literature did not here go beyond Passavant. Nagler's extensive article in the "Kiinst- lerlexicon " is based on Passavant, as well as all that was collected by Schorn, in the translation of Va- sari's works. In what Goethe says here and there throughout his letters and essays, we find, after all, the clearest, truest perception of Raphael's genius. Ranke, in a peculiar way, indicated the contrast be- tween the Quattrocento and the period of the Refor- mation, and he would have been able to demonstrate Raphael's value as a historical factor in the cen- tury in which he lived ; but his ideas remained un- printed. The most valuable of all the publications of this kind is Burckhardt's "Cicerone," but the effect of what is found in it concerning Raphael is FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 311 impaired by not being given connectedly. More- over, Burckhardt writes as if explaining his views directly in front of the pictures, hence the title, "Cicerone," and he is only really intelligible to those who can stand with him before the works, or recall them distinctly to memory. In nicety of ob- servation no one excels him. At the same time he does not conceal from us that those who best under- stand these things hesitate to speak out very de- cidedly, and therefore claims a right to a certain indefiniteness. In the printed correspondence and biographies of eminent poets, artists, and scholars Raphael is often mentioned, but we rarely come across an original remark concerning him. Corne- lius' works show that the further he progresses the deeper and more earnest became his study of Raph- ael; but neither his written or spoken utterances contain anything startling or sui generis. German engravings, on the other hand, at this time ranked first among European productions, and tended to diffuse a more general knowledge of Raphael. Let us now turn to England. The first Englishmen of distinction, who, as far as my knowledge goes, published their opinion of Raphael, were the Richardsons, father and son. At the beginning of the last century they were eminent authorities in Italy, France, and their own country. Amid all the difficulties \vhich at that time opposed the gratification of a love for art, they had followed upon Raphael's traces and stored up their observa- 312 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. tions in a Look which became famous. They wrote only of what they had actually ascertained. The position given by the English nation to its rising artists was a manlier one than had been thought their due in Italy and France, where ideas of art and luxury were hardly separable. The Richard- sons, independent men, educated in liberal views, felt that an artist was to be placed on the same height with the poet or historian. It is hardly necessary to say that they recognized the Cartoons for the Tapestries as Raphael's grandest achieve- ments. To them, as Englishmen, these drawings, in their thrilling realities, were peculiarly intelli- gible. Whether Raphael was to be considered an imitator of Michael Angelo (the great bone of con- tention, and handled in a childish way, or as if it were a mere question of etiquette) they did not dis- cuss, but simply admitted it as redounding to his honor. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the greatest English painter of the last century, was kindled by the enthusiasm of the Richardsons. He had studied Raphael's frescoes in Rome, and copied portions of them. Prom a fellow-countryman he received a commis- sion to copy the School of Athens with a change ; lie was required to place the heads of prominent Englishmen, living in Rome at that time, on the figures in the composition. As director of the Lon- don Academy, Reynolds never failed to speak of Raphael in his public addresses, and even before he FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 313 became such an undisputed authority, defended him in a series of newspaper articles when connoisseurs (on the ground of academic rules) dared to find fault witn the tapestry cartoons. Webb's celebrated " Inquiries as to what is Beauty " was published about this time ; a series of dialogues in which the whole world of art, both an- cient and modern, was discussed, and special atten- tion devoted to Raphael. In Webb's opinion, also, the cartoons exhibit Eaphael's genius in its highest potency. But he who plays the role of Raphael in the dialogues confesses that in the compositions of the ancients the supreme moments of passionate emotion are given with far less outlay of figures (in which Webb refers as much to existing monuments as to what ancient writers have said), while it is granted that Raphael, in comparison, excels in making the characteristic motive shine forth from groups of men. These arguments, in which the climax of the book is reached, are convincingly stated, and may not have been without influence on Goethe. Nevertheless, it is not to be marvelled at that Webb, as well as Reynolds, in regard to mere color, put Correggio far above Raphael. We see Mengs is at first of the same opinion. Correggio was the master most easily understood whom all aspired to imitate. The softness of his lines corresponded to the public taste, and fired the emulation of the artists. But Webb and Reynolds really thought 314 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL Raphael outdone in many respects. "Never," said Reynolds, "did Raphael quite rise above the dry- ness and pettiness of conception he inherited from Perugino. When he painted in oils, his hand seemed to grasp the brush convulsively, thus de- tracting from the spirit and lightness of the work. Indeed he did not even preserve that correctness of form in his easel pictures which we admire in his frescoes." The further information given us by English art critics did not broaden Richardson's horizon. Art history was still a separate promise into which those writing history, in the sense of Gibbon, never en- tered. The first English author who here went a step farther was Roscoe. In his "Life of Lorenzo de' Medici" he makes a diversion from his proper theme to treat of Raphael. We find in him not only a knowledge of the works and the literature relative to them, but a coolness and impartiality of judgment which is becoming in a historian, even in face of the most elevating phenomena. It is known how little England was affected by the French Revolution, which convulsed the rest of Europe. Her aesthetic views continued the same as before, and Reynolds' authority was unquestioned.* In 1816, Duppa, in a wretched biography of Raph- ael, fell back literally on Reynolds' opinion. The * New editions of his collected writings followed one upon an- other. The last appeared about 1850. FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 315 letters and poems of Lord Byron give nothing. On the other hand we meet with a passage in one of Shelley's letters * (who, as poet and critic, was on a more elevated plane than Byron), which shows him to have been the first Englishman capable of regard- ing Raphael with the modern feeling. In Bologna, he writes, " standing before the picture of St. Cecilia you forget that it is a picture as you look at it, and yet it is most unlike any of those things which we call reality. It is of the inspired and ideal kind, and seems to have been conceived and executed in a similar state of feeling to that which produced, among the ancients, those perfect specimens of po- etry and sculpture which are the baffling models of succeeding generations. There is a unity and a perfection in it of an incommunicable kind. The central figure, St. Cecilia, seems wrapt in such in- spiration as produced her image in the painter's mind ; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes lifted up, her chestnut hair flung back from her forehead ; she holds an organ in her hands ; her countenance, as it were, calmed by the depth of her passion and rap- * The one only notice showing that Duppa's book had reached him. In 1817 he writes of the German artists who wore their hair d. la Raphael. Goethe also speaks of the " smooth combed '" young artists in Rome. Stendhal met Byron in 1816, in Milan. The letter in which he gives an account of it contains a characteristic sketch of the poet, whom he took to see the Brera collection, and whose penetration and judgment of the different masters he admired. Here before the Sposalizio, Raphael must have been discussed in case the picture had returned from Paris. One of Byron's smaller poems, Beppo, has a strophe, in which Raphael is men- tioned in somewhat general terms as living immortally in Italy. 316 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. ture, and penetrated throughout with the warm and radiant light of life. She is listening to the music of heaven, and, as I imagine, has just ceased to sing, for the four figures that surround her evi- dently point, by their attitudes, toward her, par- ticularly St. John, who, with a tender, yet impas- sioned gesture, bends his countenance towards her, languid with the depth of his emotion. At her feet lie various instruments of music, broken and un- strung. Of the coloring I do not speak ; it eclipses Nature, yet it has all her truth and softness." These are expressions to which we respond as to those in Goethe's letter, which was written thirty years earlier. The principal part of Raphael's works, purchas- able in this and the last century, went to Eng- land. His sketches, especially, have flowed thither in richest abundance. The characteristic delight of the English in exact reproduction of what is tangi- ble and visible, found an illustration in the publi- cation of fac-similes of these sheets. Count Caylus, who ordered the first imperfect copies of Raphael's sketches made in France, was speedily outdone by the English. The costliness of the volumes in which these sketches were collected however, some- what impaired what would otherwise have been the benefit of these correct replicas. Next came in photography, and the Prince Consort of England conceived the plan of arranging, with its help, a complete series of Raphael's works, so complete, FOUR CENTURIES OP FAME. 317 that not a single stroke by his hand was to be omitted. At the first International Exhibition, in Paris, it was seen that English industrial art surpassed the French in material, but was inferior to it in form. Naturally, the question arose as to how the latter could be improved. And now we have an instance of what the right man in the right place can achieve ; the Prince Consort believed in the possi- bility of educating this sense of beauty of form in the nation. The manner in which this task was undertaken, and the success attending it, were the result of his initiative. Eye and hand must be trained, and schools were established of which this was to be the aim. Many could have started such a work, but the peculiar merit in the Prince was his recognition that only by the use of the very best models could the result be attained ; only the best being good enough. One of the most successful measures taken was the photographic reproduction of the Tapestry Cartoons, and their dissemination throughout the country, which they were aestheti- cally to enrich. And the cartoons fulfilled their mission. If they had before been held in honor, they were now, in the opinion of the entire public, valued as one of the most precious national posses- sions. Karl Ruland (to-day Director of the Wei- mar Museum) made the catalogue to the Prince Consort's Raphael collection. Here the systematic classification of all that Raphael had ever drawn or 318 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. painted, on the one hand, and on the other, of the works merely attributed to him, was new, and fur- nished such a survey of his entire labors as Passa- vant had not been able to give us. The unspoken criticism everywhere developed is also of import- ance. The collection made by the Prince Consort of England enabled the students of art for the first time to take a critical survey of all Raphael's pro- ductions ; the result of this comparative glance was the immediate rejection of a number of them, while it became evident, also, that the genuine Raphaels were not to be catalogued a la Passavant (or accord- ing to a long problematical chronology), but must be classified by their subjects. This last discovery threw light on the entire mass. A firm basis was gained for our present work, viz., the elimination of the doubtful elements by a criticism progressively incisive. An advantage of a much higher kind, moreover, grew out of this conscientious register of all the extant sketches and studies. It offered the possi- bility of tracing the growth of a number of the most important compositions from the very begin- ning, and of seeing the spiritual meaning gradually unfold with the outward progress of the work. With fresh wonder do we now look into the work-shop of the master. His compositions tell their own story, and Vasari's accounts are to be tested from a new side. This is the aim of my own work, whose POUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 319 achievement would have been impossible without Ruland's catalogue, and the help he kindly af- forded me by his photographs. It may now be permitted me to relate how I was myself first led to Raphael. Four of Raphael's Madonnas were familiar to my childish eyes. In my father's room hung Miiller's engraving 'of the Dresden Madonna, for which he had been one of the original subscribers ; in my mother's the Belle Jardiniere, by Desnoyers; the Virgin in the Green Fields, by Agricola, and the Madonna della Sedia, also by Desnoyers. I looked upon these pictures as something without which the world (within the narrow horizon encompassing me) would be inconceivable, and so deeply are they im- printed on my mind that, if one of them is men- tioned, not the painted original but the engraving rises vividly before me. 1 recall the bewilderment into which I was thrown by my first glance at the Dresden Madonna. Something wholly dear and familiar suddenly came upon me in a new guise, and had I been asked my opinion, at the moment 1 should have given the engraving the preference, for I knew every hatching in it, and could not imagine the picture without the cross lines. When I enumerate the engravings from Raphael's pictures which were to be found in the houses of our friends, I may be said to have grown up in the sight of all his works, without having the idea once enter my mind of arranging them in historical 320 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. order, or indeed of considering them as one life-work. I never heard Raphael discussed, although I had been taught to look upon these works as the highest achievement of art. As for the pictures by his hand and those ascribed to him in the Berlin Museum, they did not awaken in me any special sympathy. The incentive to a different view of things was first given by the publication of Gubul's Artists' Let- ters, " Kiinstlerbriefen" in Berlin. This book created an interest in the study of modern art. Here the personal relation of the authors to their works was made evident. Men read how the great artists had thought, how they had spent their lives, and how the works themselves proclaimed the men. Michael Angelo and Raphael became tangible personalities. At the same time Gubul explained how one could take up the study of these matters independently. The books from which he quoted were in the Royal Library. I installed myself in the remotest corner of the upper story of the great building, and did not rest until I had made myself at home in the entire literature. To this the Cabinet of Engravings fur- nished the necessary supplement. After having ab- sorbed all that was attainable in Berlin, and before seeing Italy, I wrote an essay upon Raphael and Michael Angelo by way of a discussion of the " artists'-letters." In the same year I went for the first time to Rome. It was toward the end of May, 1857. Never again was I to see Rome as I then saw it. The city FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 321 under papal regime, still wholly absorbed in itself, no railroad trespassing on its sacred territory, seemed to lie in stillness of thought, asleep in the sunshine, or, as if at anchor on a waveless sea. One felt it might have been so forever, and so forever must remain. The hot streets, alive only in the evenings, were deserted, as, in the slight shade af- forded by the houses, I wended my way morning after morning to the Vatican, mounted its endless stairs, and wandered through the long corridors, whose cool walls exhaled a sweet breath from the orange blossoms in the pope's gardens, the fragrance of which, in recollection, often seems to surround me still. Many a day I met no soul upon the way through the whole palace. The custodian was at- tracted by a far-echoing bell to the door by which he let me in and out again. I passed a long period of time there, and in the equally deserted Farnesina, slowly familiarizing myself sufficiently with Raphael's works to comprehend, at last, what I was seeing. This knowledge is not to be hastily attained. By night, when again in my room near the Capitol, I tried to write down what I had seen during the day. I thought the pictures, in every outline and shade, were stamped upon my mind, but in attempting to describe them accurately, was at first astounded to find how little of them actually remained. At that time, beyond these impressions, I had nothing. None of the sketches were known to me ; our literature had scarcely concerned itself with Raph- 322 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. ael. There was no one with whom I could discuss the works, for my acquaintances were devoted to archaeology, and Cornelius expressed himself only in generalities. Raphael and Michael Angelo seemed to me as one and the same productive force embodied in two per- sons, who were to each other relatively as the spring to the summer. What other pictures Rome con- tained (chiefly of the Bolognese school) were as nothing in comparison ; only the antique sculptures seemed conceived in the same spirit. These I sought to master, as they stood, ranged in countless num- bers throughout the solitary halls of the Vatican, with the assistance of Brunn, from whom, ever since those days of early friendship, I have continued to learn a great deal. Brunn conceives the entire history of art, quite in the sense of the German- Roman school of former days. He thinks it impos- sible to understand the unfolding of ancient art without knowing the development of the modern from the Trecento to the Cinquecento ; while to me it seems equally impossible to have any real knowledge of modern art without that of the antique. In my biography of Michael Angelo I gave to Raphael as much room as his character and works in my opinion deserved when compared with those of the great Florentine. He did not live out the full measure of a human life ; did not, like him, ex- perience all its vicissitudes. Manifold attempts have been made to furnish what we call to-day " A Life FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 323 of Raphael." Such a life will never be written. Raphael, as an artist, wandered over the earth with something of the form and step of a spirit, leaving no footprints behind. In the " Life of Goethe," I tried to show that one of the distinctions between Schiller and Goethe was, that a knowledge of the events of Goethe's life was indispensable to an understanding of his works, while in the case of Schiller, however stormy his existence may have been in reality, as a poet he was wholly independent of these vicissitudes. Fate might have led him in entirely different paths on earth, but his creations would have been the same, for his spirit dwelt above the world, and in those higher realms his poems had their birth. This is equally true of Raph- ael, and my first acquaintance with him led me to suspect this parallel, which time has convinced me is a reality. If, instead of the few remaining letters we had an extensive correspondence by Raphael's hand it would, nevertheless, betray little. Raphael is one of those who aspire to belong to themselves in order to give form to what fills their imagination. Four simple statements exhaust the story of his life : he lived, he loved, he worked, he died young. Michael Angelo, like Goethe, took firm hold of life in all its varied relations. He has left behind deep traces of his efforts and influence, as a man, in mul- tifarious directions. Of Raphael one can only say that his works exhibit a steadily progressive nature. 326 THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL. yet some day lose all interest in the personal expe- riences even of Goethe and Michael Angelo, and; occupy themselves only with their best works. The' essential influence of such men on humanity must sooner or later become the sole measure of their genius. As regards Raphael, I say to myself, Nature needed such a phenomenon for her creative aims. Nature is neither parsimonious nor wasteful, she pro- duces what the world needs. For the development of modern nations, Raphael's pictures were indis- pensable ; a man lovely and amiable, whose term of life was short, was elected to create them, and the Rome of the century of the Reformation chosen as his working-place. It almost seems as if Raphael were now beginning to fulfil the ideal assigned to him. Just consider what infinite pains, labor, and expense were involved in Prince Albert's at- tempt to obtain the photographs which were to make his Raphael collection unique in Europe ! To-day every one everywhere on earth can pre- pare such a collection at a small cost. Every stu- dent can learn more about Raphael in one semester than the most distinguished connoisseur knew fifty years ago. When, as a child, I saw the Sistine Madonna in my father's room, the fact of the ex- istence of such a picture was known to but a few thousands. For a long time the Prince Consort was the only person permitted to have a copy pho- FOUR CENTURIES OF FAME. 327 tographed from the Dresden original. To-day this peerless Madonna is borne .far and wide in innu- merable copies over the whole world. A knowledge of Kaphael and the possession of his works has become an element of education in modern life, which men recognize as something indispensable to their highest development.