Castiglione and Raffaello

chapter 6 “Love is Naught But a Certain Desire to Enjoy Beauty”: Castiglione and Raffaello

Pasquale Sabbatino

1 Raffaello’s The Triumph of Galatea*

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, a new trend developed within the field of art history: The Triumph of Galatea (1511–12), a fresco by Raffaello Sanzio,1 aroused general interest and marked the start of a successful period for the mythological tradition. In his first edition of Vite2 (1550), Vasari does not mention the Galatea when he presents Raffaello’s biography, although he lists the other works that were executed in Agostino Chigi’s Villa in Lungara (which was purchased in 1576 by cardinal Alessandro Farnese and renamed Villa Farnesina).3 He does however acknowledge the Galatea in the biography of the Sienese Baldassarre Peruzzi, the architect responsible for the U-shape of Villa Farnesina, which was conceived to make the exterior appear like a theatre stage. Peruzzi was also the painter of the illusionistic decorations in the Sala delle Colonne or Sala delle Prospettive (1518–9), with fake colonnades and landscapes:4

Even greater was the fame that came to him from the model of the Palace of Agostino Chigi, executed with such beautiful grace that it seems not to

* This essay elaborates on the findings previously presented to an Italian audience in Sabbatino, Pasquale. 2004. “Il Trionfo della Galatea di Raffaello e Il libro del Cortegiano di Castiglione. Il dibattito sull’imitazione nel primo Cinquecento.” Studi rinascimentali 2: 23– 48. The translation was carried out by Mirella De Sisto and George Metcalf. 1 Cf. Thoenes 1977, 220–72; Id. 1986, 59–72; Chastel 1986, 3–10. 2 Le vite de piu eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri (Firenze, [Torrentino]), “Lives of the Most Eminent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors, from Cimabue to Our Times”. All translations are mine, except where indicated otherwise. 3 In his autobiography (begun in 1558 and finished in 1567), Benvenuto Cellini also mentioned the works by Raffaello in Chigi’s Villa, which became an actual school of painting. Cf. Cellini 1985, 120: “During that time I used to go to draw, sometimes in Michelagniolo’s chapel, and sometimes in the house of Agostino Chigi of Siena, which contained many incomparable paintings by the hand of the extremely talented Raffaello from Urbino.” (Addington Symonds 2001, XIX). 4 Cf. De Fusco 1981, 93–5, 166; Frommel 2003.

have been built, but rather to have sprung into life; and with his own hand he decorated the exterior with most beautiful scenes in terretta. The hall, likewise, is adorned with rows of columns executed in perspective, which, with the depth of the intercolumniation, cause it to appear much larger. But what is the greatest marvel of all is a loggia that may be seen over the garden, painted by Baldassarre with scenes of the Medusa turning men into stone, such that nothing more beautiful can be imagined; and then there is Perseus cutting off her head, with many other scenes in the spandrels of that vaulting, while the ornamentation, drawn in perspective with colours, in imitation of stucco, is so natural and lifelike, that even to excellent craftsmen it appears to be in relief. And I remember that when I took the Chevalier Tiziano, a most excellent and honoured painter, to see that work, he would by no means believe that it was painted, until he had changed his point of view, when he was struck with amazement. In that place are some works executed by Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, in his first manner; and by the hand of the divine Raffaello, as has been related, there is a Galatea being carried off by sea-gods. Vasari, Lives. In de Vere 1912–14, 65–65

In the biography of Sebastiano del Piombo, painter of the majestic Polyphemus (Roma, Villa Farnesina, loggia of Galatea), Vasari gives chronological precedence to The Triumph of Galatea.6 The two frescos are based on the same sources, represent the same mythological anecdote and, consequently, complement each other:

After this work, Raffaello having executed a story of Galatea in the same place, Sebastiano, at the desire of Agostino, painted beside it a Polyphemus in fresco, in which, spurred by rivalry with Baldassarre of

5 Cf. Vasari 1986, 685. 6 Regarding the still unresolved issue of the chronology of the two frescos, cf. Thoenes 1986, 62–3: “In the literature on the subject, opinions are more frequent than proper arguments. It is usually assumed that the Polyphemus preceded the Galatea. This seems the most logical solution: the story, as told by Poliziano, goes from left to right, starting in the first bay of the wall with the work by Sebastiano […].who is then followed by Raffaello. […] As to the Galatea, there is indeed a claim of it being a previous work: it is Vasari’s claim […]. Hirst furthermore, on a stylistic basis, dates the Polyphemus to “no earlier than the first few months of 1512”, which would be somewhat later than I would estimate the Galatea to have been executed. But none of this is conclusive, and it remains more plausible that Raffaello altered Sebastiano’s conception, either as his successor or even – according to Philipp Fehl – as his competitor, who was active in more or less the same period […].