Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga oil on wood, 52.50 x 37.30 cm , Galleria degli , 1503 – 1504 ca.

Like the painting depicting the Young Man with an Apple, this painting dates from Raffaello’s younger years, when he attended and served the court of .

Raffaello was still just a child when his father , who under Duke Federico was the intellectual of the court and trusted on all matters artistic, held a theatrical play to celebrate the wedding of Guidobaldo, the Duke of Urbino’s heir, to Elisabetta Gonzaga.

The painting arrived in the Medici collections, and thence to the Uffizi, as part of the dowry for Vittoria ’s wedding in 1631. It depicts the young woman dressed richly in clothes woven with gold, characterised by a refined, aristocratic elegance. A headdress in the portentous form of a scorpion rests on the lady’s forehead. The depiction of the landscape in the background is particularly poetic, with the light of the rising sun touching the strips of cloud in the sky and the rocky path over to the right.

Young Man with an Apple painting on wood, 47.40 x 35.30 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, 1503 – 1504 ca.

Arriving in Florence from Urbino as part of Vittoria della Rovere’s dowry upon her marriage to the Grand Duke of , this painting probably depicts a member of the Urbino court, perhaps the teenaged figure of Francesco Maria della Rovere himself.

The boy is presented to us in the role of . Like the hero in the myth, he holds the symbolic fruit in his right hand, destined for the most beautiful of the ladies who we must imagine competing before him.

Elegance, exquisite refinement, and clear inspiration from Flemish artists such as Memling and Van Eyck - these are the distinctive characteristics of this small and valuable work, which demonstrates the young Raffaello’s ongoing contact with the Urbino court before his move to Florence.

Self-portrait painting on wood, 47.30 x 34.80 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, 1505 – 1506 ca.

Raffaello was handsome, with a lovable, gentle beauty that charmed those around him. The sources tell us so, as do the testimonials of his contemporaries, and it is also shown in his surviving self-portraits; this one in the Uffizi, and the other which forms part of the School of Athens fresco in the Stanza della Segnatura. With good looks and a kind disposition, Raffaello was liked by everyone, from the Pope and the princes of Italy and Europe to each one of his many students.

This, in total unison, is how chroniclers, historians and contemporary witnesses describe him. Raffaello loved women and was loved by them in return, and this too was an aspect of his temperament that made him likable to all.

Raffaello sends us this image of himself, a man in the prime of his youth at around twenty-four years of age. The technique here is lean and essential, the paint is built up with light, almost transparent layers. The painter looks out at us while dressed for work; his clothes are dark, save for the pure white stripe of linen shirt that crosses his neck. It is clear how this face captured the public imagination, accompanying Raffaello’s universal good fortune like an icon of grace.

Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn oil on wood transferred to canvas, 67 x 56 cm Rome, Galleria Borghese, 1505 – 1506 ca.

This painting dates from the middle of Raffaello’s Florentine years. With the extraordinary mimetic capability that had characterised him since his very first efforts, the young master, having arrived from Urbino, looked to the works of Michelangelo and Leonardo – drawing more upon the latter (in his aerial softness, his speculative intelligence, his absolute humanism) than the former.

Raffaello looked to the “labours of the modern masters” but also to those of “the old”, as Giorgio Vasari would write. He looked to the painters of the San Marco school (Mariotto Albertinelli and Fra Bartolomeo), to Masaccio’s work at Santa Maria del Carmine, to Beato Angelico, to the melodious blue and white radiance of Luca della Robbia’s Madonnas.

In this work, which depicts a young and beautiful woman whose figure stands out against a vast, luminous landscape, the painter’s source of inspiration is primarily Leonardo (the Leonardo of the Mona Lisa and Lady with an Ermine). The woman’s pose, the aerial perspective and also the symbolism remind us of Leonardo. Indeed, the unicorn, which is shown held in the woman’s lap like a kitten, is a mythical creature symbolising feminine virtues such as chastity and purity.

Portrait of a Young Woman (La Muta) painting on wood, 64 x 48 cm Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, 1505 – 1506 ca.

Previously in the Uffizi (inv. 1890 DE237), this piece has since been entrusted to the safekeeping of the Galleria Nazionale in Urbino. The identity of the woman depicted here is unknown despite the many theories advanced by critics, none of them convincing. Together with confirmation of the portrait’s attribution to Raffaello, the piece was given a name that has stayed with it ever since: La Muta.

As a title it is well suited to the spiritual “non-eloquence”, the air of mystery that hangs about this superb portrait. The painting dates from the middle of Raffaello’s Florentine period, around 1505-06, a time when he was deeply observant of Leonardo’s work.

Portrait of Agnolo Doni painting on wood, 65 x 47.70 cm Florence, Galleria Palatina, 1506

1506 saw the marriage of the century celebrated in Florence, that of Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi, the heirs of two of the richest and most powerful families in the city. Florence’s great artists competed to offer the couple the best examples of their art. Michelangelo painted the tondo of the Holy Family that resides today in the Uffizi, universally known as the Doni Tondo. The young Raffaello, who had just turned twenty-three and had lived in Florence for two years, used two medium-sized panels (65 x 48 cm) to produce portraits of the married couple.

This is the diptych now preserved in the Galleria Palatina of the . On the reverse of both paintings, a master of the early sixteenth century, identified by Federico Zeri as the so-called “Master of Serumido”, has illustrated stories from myth to convey the auspicious theme of conjugal fertility.

On close inspection of the diptych, we can see the legacy of The Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesca, kept today at the Uffizi, which Raffaello studied in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino. Raffaello’s concept here is to set the two portraits, not in profile as in the Piero della Francesca work but facing forwards, against an immense landscape of high skies, clouds dissolving into the blue, and infinitely distant prospects, so that the viewer quivers at the vastness of creation.

Portrait of Maddalena Strozzi painting on wood, 65 x 45.80 cm Florence, Galleria Palatina, 1506

1506 saw the marriage of the century celebrated in Florence, that of Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi, the heirs of two of the richest and most powerful families in the city. Florence’s great artists competed to offer the couple the best examples of their art. Michelangelo painted the tondo of the Holy Family that resides today in the Uffizi, universally known as the Doni Tondo. The young Raffaello, who had just turned twenty-three and had lived in Florence for two years, used two medium-sized panels (65 x 48 cm) to produce portraits of the married couple.

This is the diptych now preserved in the Galleria Palatina of the Palazzo Pitti. On the reverse of both paintings, a master of the early sixteenth century, identified by Federico Zeri as the so-called “Master of Serumido”, has illustrated stories from myth to convey the auspicious theme of conjugal fertility.

On close inspection of the diptych, we can see the legacy of The Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesca, kept today at the Uffizi, which Raffaello studied in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino. Raffaello’s concept here is to set the two portraits, not in profile as in the Piero della Francesca work but facing forwards, against an immense landscape of high skies, clouds dissolving into the blue, and infinitely distant prospects, so that the viewer quivers at the vastness of creation.

Raffaello’s homage to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is clear in the positioning of Maddalena Strozzi, but it is with a Flemish sensibility that the painter’s eye captures every detail of the subject’s coiffure, the smooth sheen of the pearl, the texture of the cloth, the transparency of the silk, the light shining on the marbled satin of the bodice.

Woman with a Veil painting on canvas, 82 x 60.50 cm Florence, Galleria Palatina, 1512 – 1513 ca.

From among Raffaello’s loves, a true romantic legend arose. Margherita, who was the daughter of a baker (fornaio in Italian) and who has thus gone down in history as La Fornarina, was Raffaello’s favourite model and his lover.

We recognise her features in the Sistine Madonna in Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie, and in the panel painting kept in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica at Palazzo Barberini in Rome. The latter painting is itself known as La Fornarina, is signed and can be dated to around 1516, but is probably original only in part.

Entirely original, however, is the canvas kept at the Galleria Palatina in Florence, documented in grand ducal collections since the early 17th century. This is very probably the truest representation of Raffaello’s lover. The image of the woman is touched with tenderness by the painter’s art, and with a sort of affectionate understanding, as if it were a real act of love.

Portrait of Tommaso Fedra Inghirami painting on wood, 89.50 x 62.80 cm Florence, Galleria Palatina, 1512 – 1513 ca.

Tommaso Fedra Inghirami, a highly cultured Prefect of the Apostolic Library, to which position he was appointed in 1510, is depicted here at his work desk in the act of writing.

The realism of the mercilessly highlighted strabismus does not contradict, but rather exalts, the nobility of soul and thought of a man who seems to have dedicated his life to the study of science and literature. The red in his curial garb enfolds the spherical reality of a body and face that to us appear inhabited by nothing other than a quick and reflective intelligence.

It is during these years, at the height of the Stanza di Eliodoro frescoes, that we see Raffaello really discovering colour, perhaps through the influence of Sebastiano del Piombo. His attention also turned – possibly at the suggestion of Lorenzo Lotto, documented in the workshop – to the reality of skin and to the physiognomic and psychological intensity of the portrait. No further example is needed than that of the kneeling chair-bearers on the proscenium in the Mass at Bolsena (painted during this period in the Stanza di Eliodoro), which arguably beg comparison with Dürer and, beyond Dürer, with Velazquez.

La Fornarina painting on wood, 87 x 63 cm Rome, Palazzo Barberini, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, 1516 – 1517 ca.

While working on the frescoes for his friend Agostino Chigi’s villa, the famous Farnesina on the banks of the Tiber, Raffaello fell in love with Margherita, the baker’s daughter from Trastevere upon whom legend has bestowed the name “Fornarina”.

Such were the painter’s pangs of love that the work could not go on. Therefore Agostino Chigi - according to Vasari – brought the girl to stay with Raffaello, and from that point on the work proceeded well.

This young and beautiful woman is presented to us with bare breasts, wearing a precious bracelet around her arm in gold and blue enamel, upon which we can read a signature that also functions as a dedication: “Raffaello Urbinas”. It is clear to all that this is the portrait of Raffaello’s favourite model and lover.

Critics are divided in assessing the painting’s degree of authenticity. The current prevailing view is to consider it a masterpiece from Raffaello’s workshop, worked on primarily by the Master with the partial assistance of Giulio Romano.

Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione painting on canvas, 82 x 67 cm Paris, Louvre, 1514 – 1515 ca.

This portrait perfectly exemplifies the intellectual and existential values of the epoch that art history textbooks call the “Renaissance”.

It is an emblem of supreme elegance, of impeccable intelligence, of aristocratic understatement and nonchalance - a value described during the period using the term “sprezzatura”. It is almost a translation into paint of an entire philosophy of life, ethics and aesthetics, a philosophy expressed by the portrait’s subject when he wrote The Book of the Courtier, one of the most celebrated books of the century.

Raffaello was a friend of Count Castiglione, a leading intellectual in Rome during this period. In Pietro Bembo’s memorable and often-quoted letter to Cardinal Bibbiena (3 May 1516), he speaks of a trip that is to take place the following day to the archaeological area of Tivoli, the company consisting of himself, Raffaello, and the humanists Navagero and Beazzano.

When the construction of the Loggias at the Palazzi Apostolici was complete, and Raffaello and his team unveiled the series of frescoes that the world would come to know as “Raffaello’s ”, Baldassare Castiglione wrote the following words on 16 June 1519 to Isabella d’Este, the Marchioness of Mantova: “A loggia has now been provided, painted and stuccoed in the old style, carried out by Raffaello, as beautiful as it could be, and perhaps more so than anything else we see today from modern artists”. Castiglione understood all. Raffaello’s Loggias are the very peak of the style that Vasari called the “modern way”.

Portrait of Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena painting on canvas, 86.30 x 65.90 cm Florence, Galleria Palatina, 1516 – 1517 ca.

A refined intellectual and eminent figure in the court of Leo X, Cardinal Dovizi da Bibbiena was one of Raffaello’s most celebrated clients.

It was for him that, in the Palazzi Apostolici, Raffaello painted frescoes for the so-called Loggetta and Stufetta - the latter being the cardinal’s private bathroom. These frescoes are exquisite evocations of antiquity using the encaustic technique, in tones of cocciopesto red, black and white, featuring a spread of grotesque figures and mythological and erotic scenes.

Raffaello’s portrait of his friend and patron is an image of elegant snobbery, sharp sagacity, and acute, ironic intelligence. A work such as this, together with the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione kept at the Louvre, can be seen as a symbol of that historic period known as the .

Portrait of Medici with Cardinals Luigi de’ Rossi and Giulio de’ Medici painting on wood, 155.50 x 119.50 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, 1518 – 1519 ca.

Pope Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent was a passionate admirer of Raffaello He commissioned some of the great works of the painter’s later years (the Loggias and the Sistine tapestries) – is depicted here in his role as an impeccable intellectual, a refined bibliophile. He is turning over the pages of an old, illuminated Bible.

Beside him are Cardinals Luigi de’ Rossi and Giulio, the natural son of Giuliano de’ Medici, cousin of Leo, and the future Pope Clement VII. The execution of the painting can be dated, for documentary reasons, to between the end of 1517 (the elevation of Luigi de’ Rossi to the status of cardinal) and August 1519, the year of de’ Rossi’s death.

The painting, continuously documented in the Medici collections from the 1620s on, is a superb masterpiece of the approach known as “pittura di valori”, shown in the symphony of reds that harmonises the satins and velvets of the pope and his acolytes, the cardinals.

Even more than Julius II, Leo X was Raffaello’s pope. He was an unconditional admirer of Raffaello, and an intelligent, munificent client. His glory years moved in parallel with those of the Urbinian painter, and temporally almost coincided. In fact, he died in 1521, one year after Raffaello’s passing. In the Stanze frescoes painted between 1514 and 1517, the deeds of ancient popes are celebrated and each one bears the face of Leo X. Thus do we see – always in the likeness of the Medici pope – Leo the Great stopping Attila on the banks of the Po, Leo III crowning Charlemagne as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and Leo IV making the sign of the cross to halt the fire that had been devastating the Borgo quarter of Rome.

Double Portrait painting on canvas, 99 x 83 cm Paris, Louvre, 1518 – 1519 ca.

This painting might be better named Self-portrait of Raffaello with a Friend. Identifiable as belonging to the final stage of the Master’s style, between 1518 and 1519, the painting represents two men.

One of the two subjects, slightly towards the back, is Raffaello himself, represented in the act of placing a hand on the shoulder of the man in the foreground, who is evidently a close friend. This person has never been conclusively identified. The passionate, vehement temperament of the man in the foreground comes through with admirable clarity, as do the feelings of friendship on the part of the painter, who with this hand gesture intends to convey his affection for the subject of the portrait.

Like Titian, Rembrandt, and Velazquez, like all the great portrait painters throughout history, Raffaello succeeds in depicting not only the subject’s physiognomic and psychological reality, but also his identity – cultural and social, of state and of rank – together with his self-concept and what he wishes others to recognise in him; how he sees himself, and how he wants to be seen.