Free publication on www.friendsoftheuffizigallery.org Polistampa - Firenze JOURNAL OF THE FRIENDS OF THE UFFIZI GALLERY No. 76 - December 2019 Homage to the Greatest In the words of 1483–1520, these are the Raphael walking through the Venetian order that through chronological boundaries of poetically entitled palace cham- perspective unveils the visible Antonio Paolucci, the Raphael’s existence. His earli- bers (the Throne Room, Jole’s truth. phases of the brief but est period was spent in Urbino Room, the Sweet Orange Room, The foundations of Rapha- intense life of Raphael. el’s training are Urbino and the artistic and literary culture The fleeting years of his of the court of the Montefel- glorious youth, filled with tro. Urbino taught the son of masterpieces Giovanni Santi two fundamen- tal concepts. First, the omni- presence and pervasiveness of aphael died on April 6, beauty found everywhere and R1520, shortly after his within everything. Still today, thirty-seventh birthday, having few other places in Italy give as come down some days earlier clear a demonstration of this with an “acute and continuous concept as the city of the Mon- fever”, probably malaria, en- tefeltro. Urbino taught the boy, demic and often fatal in Rome heir to his father’s workshop at the time. His funeral was held and trade, that beauty must be in the Pantheon. All Rome was modulated and represented present and all Rome cried – following a codified selection, as Vasari tells us – also because within protocols that find their the Transfiguration, today in the origins and justification within Vatican Pinacoteca, was placed the Court itself. No one among behind Raphael and at the sight the Renaissance greats, not of “his body dead and his work Leonardo, not Michelangelo, alive”, no one could hold back was more of a ‘court’ artist than their tears. Raphael. Raphael rests in an ancient As a child in the small, re- Roman marble sarcophagus fined, paternalistic court of on which his poet friend Pietro Raphael, Madonna del Cardellino, Gallery of Statues and Paintings, Uffizi Galleries. Urbino, Raphael received the Bembo placed a dedication of imprinting that one day would two memorable Latin verses: where he was born and where the‘Gathering’ Room), entering allow him to dominate with per- “Ille hic est Raphael, timuit quo he learned the fundamentals the rigorous and melodious or- fect naturalism the papal court sospite vinci rerum magna pa- of art in the workshop of his der of Francesco di Giorgio, of in Rome. rens et moriente mori” (Here lies father Giovanni Santi. I imag- Benedetto da Maiano, of Luca The formative years in Ur- the famous Raphael. Nature, ine little Raphael inside the della Robbia; I imagine him bino are followed by Raphael’s the great mother of all things, Ducal Palace of Urbino in the gazing on the pictorial master- encounter with Perugino whose feared to be conquered when company of his father who pieces that filled the Palace: style he makes his own, never he was alive and to die now that was a familiar presence there. Piero della Francesca and Boc- again to forget the magic of the he is dead); verses of great beau- I imagine him standing in the cati, Giovanni Bellini and Justus rhythmic control of form, of the ty that capture with elegance courtyard of Laurana, perhaps of Ghent. On one hand, Flem- beauty that softens the heart. Af- and splendor the destiny of a the finest masterpiece of Ital- ish preciosity, the “minima”, the painter who – as his contempo- ian Renaissance architecture exquisite mimetic virtuosities of raries believed and we still do – for rhythm and harmonious truth and nature; on the other, Antonio Paolucci was the greatest of all times. majesty; I imagine the young the colored Florentine and (continued on page 2) IL GIORNALE degli UFFIZI 1 Borghese Gallery, signed and Julius II and then Leo X Medici, dated 1507. that his genius truly takes flight. In 1508, he goes to Rome. The Stanze are Raphael’s Ro- The fame of his Florentine suc- man masterpiece. He worked cesses precedes him and he on them for twelve years, paint- is held to be a wonder of bra- ing first the Stanza della Segna- vura, virtually the marvel of the tura, then the Stanza of Helio- century. 1508 was a fated year, dorus, and finally, in succession, charged with the future for the the Stanza dell’Incendio di Borgo history of the arts. That year in (Burning of the Borgo), manag- fact Pope Julius II della Rovere ing before his death to design calls before him two artists: one, the Sala di Constantino (Hall of a young man 33 years in age, Constantine), finished by his Michelangelo Buonarroti from pupils under the direction of Florence, who he asks to paint Giovan Francesco Penni and the vault of the Sistine Cha- Giulio Romano. In the Stanze, pel; the other, a youth aged 25 Italian Renaissance painting named Raphael from Urbino, celebrates the triumph of Julius who he requests fresco the walls II, a pope who apparently loved of his private apartment. And politics, diplomacy and war so, the Stanze are born, the most more than art. famous rooms in the world, to- While the Stanza della Segna- day part of the visitors’ itinerary tura is the most lofty representa- within the Vatican Museums. tion of human destiny in its di- Raphael is above all a Roman vision between Knowledge (the more so than a citizen of Urbi- School of Athens) and Religion no and Florence. It is in Rome (the Dispute over the Sacrament), Raphael, , Gallery of Statues and Paintings, Uffizi Galleries. Self-portrait at the court of two popes, first between the homage to Law ter Urbino, the young artist goes sari writes: Fra’ Bartolomeo and to Florence between 1504 and Mariotto Albertinelli from the 1508. This is when he sees the School of San Marco; Masaccio David standing at the entrance in Carmine; Beato Angelico, to Palazzo Vecchio and witness- Donatello and the melodious es Michelangelo and Leonardo white and blue brilliance of competing one against the oth- Luca della Robbia’s Madonnas. er for the decoration of the Hall This is the time of his Flo- of the Cinquecento, painting, rentine masterpieces: the respectively, the Battle of Cascina Portraits of Agnolo and Mad- and the Battle of Anghiari, from dalena Doni and the Madonna cartoons that become – in the del Cardellino in the Uffizi, the judgment of Benvenuto Cellini Madonna del Baldacchino and - the “school of the world”. Raphael the Madonna del Granduca in with that extraordinary mimetic the Palatine Gallery, the Holy facility that characterizes him Family in the Alte Pinakothek from his earliest efforts looks to of Munich and the Holy Fam- one and then the other, privileg- ily with a Lamb in the Prado. ing the latter (the aerial sfumato, Raphael’s Florentine period the speculative intelligence, the comes to a close with the De- total humanism of Leonardo). position of Christ, today in the And beyond the works of the modern masters he also looks to those “de’ maestri vecchi” (of Raphael, Donna Velata, the old masters), as Giorgio Va- Palatine Gallery, Pitti Palace. (the Birth of the Great Codices) and A Year of Exhibitions lery of the Marches in Urbino. In March, the Pina- the consolation of Beauty (the coteca Ambrosiana in Milan will present the newly Parnassus), the protagonist of In the fifth centenary of the death of Raffaello San- restored grand cartoon of the Vatican fresco of the the Stanza of Heliodorus is God zio (Urbino 1483 - Rome 1520), the artist from Ur- School of Athens (1509). Great expectations, again himself as he intervenes in His- bino will be celebrated by expositions throughout in March, for the opening of a foremost event held tory in support of his Church. Italy. The first has already opened in Urbino, the at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome in collabora- Here the sacrilegious robber artist’s birthplace, with the exhibition "Raffaello e tion with the Uffizi in Florence (March11-June 14, Heliodorus is expelled from the i suoi amici di Urbino" (Raphael and His Friends 2020, dates to be confirmed) in which Raphael’s Temple; there, Peter is liberated from Urbino) now showing at the National Gal- major works will be put on public display. from jail; Attila is halted at the gates of Rome by Pope Leo the 2 IL GIORNALE degli UFFIZI Great and finally, a bareheaded world: from the Uffizi (thePor - Pope Julius kneels and fervently trait of Leo X with Two Cardinals) prays evoking the miracle of Bol- to the Palatine Gallery (the so- sena that took place three centu- called Velata, the portrait of his ries earlier. The pope is the cus- deepest love, the famed “For- todian of the “Corpus Christi”, for narina”); from the Louvre (the this reason the Most High will Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione) never abandon him. The same to the Prado. Raphael is also concept is expressed in the Stan- appointed Conservator and Su- za of the Burning of Borgo where perintendent of the Antiquities ancient popes in the guise of of Rome. Friend of intellectu- Leo X, Julius II’s successor in als, antiquarians, archeologists 1513, put out the fire destroy- like Castiglione, his interests in- ing the neighborhood of Borgo clude the styles and techniques in Trastevere, consecrate Char- of classical civilization. All of lemagne Holy Roman Emperor Rome acclaims him, showering and defeat the Saracens at the him with honors. mouth of the Tiber River. In every man’s existence It is almost as though Ra- there is a moment of height, phael was aware of his own a zenith, when even the most destiny, given the plethora of daring hopes come true and masterpieces, endeavors and life hails with glory and splen- successes that fill the few years dor.