The Dream of a Knight, About 1504
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78. raphael (1483–1520) The Dream of a Knight, about 1504 Oil on panel, 17.5 ϫ 17.5 cm (painted surface 17.1 ϫ 17.3 cm) The National Gallery, London (ng 213) Raphael established a connection with Siena out new details with each viewing and Though not in any sense an illustration in around 1503, working with Pintoricchio making new connections between its of either tale, the imagery of this work is on the Piccolomini Library frescoes (see cat. component parts. The picture was very chiefly informed by two well-known classical 74–6). Though he may never have returned carefully planned and was realised using texts. Underlying the whole iconography is to the city, his ties with Sienese patrons a pricked cartoon now in the British the celebrated parable invented by Prodicus continued; his lost, but much-copied Museum (1994-5-14-57).3 of Ceos, a Greek philosopher of the fifth Madonna del Silenzio tondo was seemingly In the centre foreground, a handsome century bc, as reported by Xenophon made for a member of the Piccolomini youth dressed in all’antica armour lies asleep (Memorabilia, II.1, 21–34). This tells of family.1 Thus the suggestion that the Dream propped up against his shield, beneath a Hercules’s encounter, at the brink of of a Knight and its companion picture, the laurel (or bay) tree, which provides a strong manhood, with two women – female very slightly smaller Three Graces (fig. 73), vertical accent within the composition and personifications – at a crossroads, at which were commissioned by a member of the divides the space into two distinct zones. the hero has to decide how to live his life, Borghesi family, a theory based in large The first – on the left – is occupied by a to climb Virtue’s rocky road or to follow measure on their shared early seventeenth- woman with bare feet, soberly garbed; her Pleasure’s easier path. It has been suggested century provenance in the Roman collection overdress is purple, ‘di nobilissimo colore, that Raphael found a visual source for his of the Cardinal Scipione Borghese (whose umile e onesto’ (‘in the most noble colour, composition in a woodcut – like the painting, ancestry was Sienese), is not implausible.2 humble and honest’,Dante, Vita nuova, II, 3). square – of Hercules at the Crossroads Certainly, both works are not only informed Her head is modestly covered, and her published in the 1497 Latin version of by a knowledge of the works of art that expression supremely tender. She brandishes Sebastian Brant’s Stultifera navis (Ship of could be seen in Siena, but they seem to a sword, and immediately above the knight’s Fools).5 Hercules, an armed figure, is shown allude to subject-matter particularly dear head, a book. On the right is another bare- asleep. Virtue and Pleasure stand on little to Sienese patrons in the years around 1500. footed woman, with a contrastingly bright hummocks on either side, appearing to him That is not to say that the subject of red dress and sky-blue overdress. Her in a dream. The parallels are not close, but the Dream of a Knight can – or should – be draperies are more animated than those of supporting the connection with Prodicus’s defined precisely. Eforts to associate it with her opposite, with her overdress ‘hitched up story is the division in the landscape in one or another specific literary text have becomingly at her hip’.4 Her golden hair is Raphael’s panel. This divide is rendered generally proved flawed – this is no mere uncovered, knotted loosely behind her neck more subtly than in what was to become illustration – and are probably misguided. and entwined with a veil that twists under the standardised iconography of this subject the Dream of a Knight is an intentionally her left arm. Her pose mirrors that of the (it is worth remembering that it had not mysterious image, a web of references lady opposite and, in place of the book, yet achieved the popularity it would later). and visual prompts. Just like the most she holds a sprig of flowers – with another Unquestionably, however, one road leads sophisticated works made in this period for tucked into her hair. This is often thought from the crossroads below the arm of private devotion, it is a picture intended to to be her only attribute, but in fact the coral ‘Virtue’ on the left towards to an imposing support sustained meditation, not in this beads that are twisted through her hair crag and castle. To the right are gently case on religion, but upon love and virtue, and criss-cross her torso are looped undulating blue hills, framing the view of a poetry and painting itself. Its function is through her left hand. They therefore lake or inlet into which juts what might be a declared by its small scale and the jewel- become the equivalent of the other lady’s causeway but is more probably a covered like precision of its execution; this was a sword. The two women clearly stand pier – an embarking point. The landscape is picture to be examined, repeatedly, at very for diferent things: Passavant long ago loosely derived from Netherlandish pictures close quarters, like a manuscript illumina- thought they represented ‘noble inspiration’ and perhaps, for the cluster of houses in the tion or an engraved ancient gem, picking and ‘the pleasures of life’ respectively. middle ground, from German prints.6 262 (actual size) Raphael’s knight is not, however, a victory in war – but cautions that the road has much in common with the exemplary conventional Hercules; he has none of the to her chaste mountain dwelling is steep ancients, including Scipio (cat. 67), painted demi-god’s usual identifying attributes. and stony. Pleasure counters with the ofer for a Sienese palace in the early 1490s. Panofsky introduced a further connection of a life of peaceful serenity. Scipio, like Scipio had been celebrated as an archetypal with the story of the vision of Scipio Hercules, chose the more arduous path, poetic hero in the Middle Ages, as the Africanus. He demonstrated that the strengthened in his resolution as a result saviour of Rome and a model of chastity, dialogue between Virtue (Virtus) and of this experience to become leader of the by Dante and, after him, at considerable Pleasure (Voluptas) inserted by Jacob Locher Roman forces in Spain. length, by Petrarch, who made him the in the Latin version of the Stultifera navis One key detail in the picture fits Silius’s hero of his epic Latin poem Africa, started had incorporated phrases from Silius narrative precisely – the bay-tree. It should in 1338. This was first printed in Venice in Italicus’s Punica (xv). This text had been be noted, however, that as well as reinforcing 1501, and it too probably informed (though rediscovered by Florentine humanist Poggio a connection with this particular text, laurel less directly) the iconography of Raphael’s Bracciolini in 1417 and was first published was a valuable insertion for its range of painting. Aldo Bernardo has discussed in 1471; it would have been immediately associations with both valour and poetry. Petrarch’s conversion of two historical recognisable to an educated audience. It Other details in the poem accord less well, figures, his beloved Laura and the Roman told of the choice of Scipio in a narrative especially the relative scales of the central general, into figures of high poetry.7 If obviously informed by the tale of the human protagonist and the visionary Raphael’s knight is indeed Scipio (or a Hercules’s quandary: ‘These anxious beings, the dress and manly physique of version of him), he too has been ‘poetically’ thoughts filled the young man’s mind Virtue, and the fact that her ostensible transformed. as he sat beneath the green shadow of counterpart, Pleasure, is less modestly One key part of Raphael’s translation a bay-tree that grew behind the dwelling; attired than in the painting. Silius Italicus, is the elimination of the idea that the and suddenly two figures, far exceeding moreover, describes a vision. The idea that knight should make a choice. Cecil mortal stature, flew down from the sky Scipio is dreaming may derive from another Gould considered that the women and stood to right and left of him: Virtue distinguished source, Cicero’s Somnium stand for complementary attributes was on one side and Pleasure, the enemy Scipionis and Macrobius’s commentary rather than antagonistic ones and Carol of Virtue, on the other. Pleasure’s head upon it, the latter printed no fewer than Plazzotta sees Raphael as ‘representing breathed Persian odours, and her ambrosial four times before 1501. There the dream is the double visitation not in terms of a tresses flowed free; in her shining robe diferent, however. moral dilemma, but rather as a convergence Tyrian purple was embroidered with Even if this not a straightforward visual of all the qualities to which an ideal knight ruddy gold; the pin in her hair gave rendition of the passage in Silius Italicus’s or soldier should aspire’.8 The figure of studied beauty to her brow; and her poem, Raphael’s dreaming knight is un- ‘Pleasure’ is evidently not the immoral roving, wanton eyes shot forth flame deniably characterised to resemble so many temptress of these stories, and it may upon flame. The appearance of the other of the young Greek and Roman historical be that we should rethink both ladies’ iden- was far diferent: her hair, seeking no heroes depicted in Central Italy in these tifications.