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RAFFAELLO DI SANTI

The character and the influence of Raphael are well expressed in the following sentences with which Vasari concludes his biography:—"O happy and blessed spirit! every one speaks with interest of thee; celebrates thy deeds; admires thee in thy works! Well might Painting die when this noble artist ceased to live; for when his eyes were closed she remained in darkness. For us who survive him it remains to imitate the excellent method which he has left for our guidance; and as his great qualities deserve, and our duty bids us, to cherish his memory in our hearts, and keep it alive in our discourse by speaking of him with the high respect which is his due. For through him we have the art in all its extent carried to a perfection which could hardly have been looked for; and in this universality let no human being ever hope to surpass him. And, beside this benefit which he conferred on Art as her true friend, he neglected not to show us how every man should conduct himself in all the relations of life. Among his rare gifts there is one which especially excites my wonder; I mean, that Heaven should have granted him to infuse a spirit among those who lived around him so contrary to that which is prevalent among professional men. The painters—I do not allude to the humble-minded only, but to those of an ambitious turn, and many of this sort there are—the painters who worked in company with Raphael lived in perfect harmony, as if all bad feelings were extinguished in his presence, and every base, unworthy thought had passed from their minds. This was because the artists were at once subdued by his obliging manners and by his surpassing merit, but more than all by the spell of his natural character, which was so full of affectionate kindness, that not only men, but even the very brutes, respected him. He always had a great number of artists employed for him, helping them and teaching them with the kindness of a father to his children, rather than as a master directing his scholars. For which reason it was observed he never went to court without being accompanied from his very door by perhaps fifty painters who took pleasure in thus attending him to do him honour. In short, he lived more as a sovereign than as a painter. And thus, O Art of Painting! thou too, then, could account thyself most happy, since an artist was thine, who, by his skill and by his moral excellence exalted thee to the highest heaven!"

Raphael was the son of Giovanni Sanzio, or di Santi, of Urbino. He received his first education as an artist from his father, whom, however, he lost in his eleventh year. As early as 1495 probably, he entered the school of Pietro Perugino, at Perugia, where he remained till about his twentieth year.

The "Umbrian School," in which Raphael received his first education, and in which he is accordingly placed, is distinguished from the Florentine, of which it may be said to have been an offshoot, by several well-defined characteristics. Chief of these are, first, the more sentimental expression of religious feeling, and second, the greater attention paid to distance as compared with the principal figures; both of which are explainable on the ground of local circumstances. They reflect the difference between the bustling intellectual activity of Florence and the dreamy existence but broader horizon of the dwellers in the upper valley of the Tiber. In the beautiful Nativity of Piero della Francesca (No. 908 in the National Gallery) we see something akin to the Florentine pictures, and yet something more besides. Piero shared with Paolo Uccello the eager desire to discover the secrets of perspective; but in addition he seems to have been influenced by the study of nature herself, in the open air, as Uccello never was. His pupil, Luca Signorelli (1441–1523), was more formal and less naturalistic, as may be seen by a comparison between the Circumcision (No. 1128 in the National Gallery) and Piero's Baptism of Christ on the opposite wall. Pietro Perugino (1446–1523)—his real name was Vannucci—was influenced both by Signorelli and by Verrocchio. In the studio of the latter he had probably worked with Leonardo and Lorenzo di Credi, so that in estimating the influences which went to form the art of Raphael we need not insist too strongly on the distinction between "Umbrian" and "Florentine."

Raphael's first independent works (about 1500) are entirely in Perugino's style. They bear the general stamp of the Umbrian School, but in its highest beauty. His youthful efforts are essentially youthful, and seem to contain the earnest of a high development. Two are in the Berlin Museum. In the one (No. 141) called the Madonna Solly, the Madonna reads in a book; the Child on her lap holds a goldfinch. The other (No. 145), with heads of S. Francis and S. Jerome, is better. Similar to it, but much more finished and developed, is a small round picture, the Madonna Casa Connestabile, now at St. Petersburg.

A more important picture of this time is the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the church of S. Francesco at Perugia in 1503, but now in the Vatican. In the upper part, Christ and the Madonna are throned on clouds and surrounded by angels with musical instruments; underneath, the disciples stand around the empty tomb. In this lower part of the picture there is a very evident attempt to give the figures more life, motion, and enthusiastic expression than was before attempted in the school.

After this, Raphael appears to have quitted the school of Perugino, and to have commenced an independent career: he executed at this time some pictures in the neighbouring town of Città di Castello. With all the features of the Umbrian School, they already show the freer impulse of his own mind—a decided effort to individualize. The most excellent of these, and the most interesting example of this first period of Raphael's development, is the Marriage of the Virgin (Lo Sposalizio), inscribed with his name and the date 1504, now in the Brera at Milan. With much of the stiffness and constraint of the old school, the figures are noble and dignified; the countenances, of the sweetest style of beauty, are expressive of a tender, enthusiastic melancholy, which lends a peculiar charm to this subject.

In 1504 Raphael painted the two little pictures in the Louvre, S. George and S. Michael (Nos. 1501–2) for the Duke of Urbino. The Knight Dreaming, a small picture, now in the National Gallery (No. 213), is supposed to have been painted a year earlier.

In the autumn of 1504 Raphael went to Florence. Tuscan art had now attained its highest perfection, and the most celebrated artists were there contending for the palm. From this period begins his emancipation