RAPHAEL SANTI LONDON PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NEW-STEEET SQUARE RAPHAEL SANTI His Life and His Works BY ALFRED BARON VON WOLZOGEN TRANSLATED BY F. E. BUNNETT TRANSLATOR OF GRIMM'S ' LIFE OF MICHAEL ANGELO' AND GERVINUS'S 'SHAKESPEARE COMMENTARIES LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 65 CORNHILL 1866 759.5 R12wEb TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. HAVING translated Grimm's 'Life of Michael Angelo,' I was desirous of finding some memoir of his great contemporary Eaphael, which might complete the picture we already possess of a period so rich in the history of Art. It was not easy to meet with a work which was not too diffuse in its art-criticisms for the ordinary reader, and until Wolzogen's 'Life of Eaphael' appeared, there was no concise biography of the great painter which seemed to me to supply the information required. It is for this reason that I have translated the work; and I trust it will not be without interest to those who have hitherto known Eaphael in his art alone. F. E. BUNNETT. PREFACE. EAPHAEL-LITERATURE already fills a library of its own. Extensive works, such as Passavant's ' Eafael von Urbino und sein Vater Giovanni Santi' (three volumes, with maps, Leipsic, 1839-58), are among its treasures; but there is ever lacking a concise summary of all the more important investigations and decisions hitherto arrived at with regard to the great master's life and works. The best and most spirited of these are for the most part, moreover, in various papers and pamphlets, in which Eaphael is not the sole subject. Passavant has only partially availed himself of this frag­ mentary material, and when he has done so, it has been, in my opinion, in such a manner as to admit at times of a different comprehension. So viii PREFACE. much, too, has appeared since the death of this industrious author, which deserves to have a place in a biography of Eaphael. Lastly, all the works upon this master, even the most complete, have, it appears to me, laid too little stress upon his mission as regards the history of civilisation, and upon the importance of his art both philo­ sophically and historically, although Schelling long ago drew attention to the subject. This, therefore, must be my apology for the publication of the present work. It originated in four lectures, which I delivered for the Society for the History of the Plastic Arts. Kaphael's public is large: it was my aim to furnish, as far as was possible, a complete picture of the great master, without overloading the portrait with too many detailed discussions. If, therefore, much has been in consequence omitted, which is of great interest to the special enquirer, I yet ndulge the hope of having afforded to those readers who desire from me neither an historical novel, nor a work based on new archival in- PREFACE. ix vestigations, an insight into much which every cultivated man of the present day must desire to know respecting Eaphael. I have affixed to the end of the book rather a full Appendix; and I would draw the reader's attention to it, as it contains not only accurate statements of my authorities, but many opinions, differing from those usually received, are here more closely entered into. A. VON WOLZOGEN. BKESLAU: January 1865. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I, INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER II. CHILDHOOD—EDUCATION—AND FIRST ATTEMPTS. 1483-1504. The Santi Family—Birth of Eaphael—Giovanni Santi—Early Attempts in Painting—Perugino's School of Art—Eaphael's Associates—His Painting at Perugia—His Eeturn to Urbino—Paintings for the Citta di Costella—Eeturn to Perugia—Eaphael leaves Perugino's Studio— The «Sposalizio'—' Christ on the Mount of Olives'—Cartoons for Pin- turicchio's Fresco Paintings—Attracted to Florence—Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo PAGE 21 CHAPTER III. RAPHAEL IN FLORENCE. 1504-1508. Massaccio and the Modern Style of Italian Art—Eaphael's Impressions in Florence—Power of Imitation in different Artists—The Influence of the Florentine School on Eaphael—His First Painting in Florence —His Eeturn to Perugia—His Paintings there—The Altar-piece at Blenheim—Eaphael's Eeturn to Florence—Baccio d'Agnolo—Eaphael goes to Bologna and Urbino—Splendid Court of Duke Guidobaldo— * The Three Graces'—Eeturn to Florence—* The Entombment of Christ' at Perugia—Baccio della Porta—Summoned to Eome by Pope Julius II 34 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. RAPHAEL IN ROME UNDER POPE JULIUS II. 1508-1513. Raphael in Rome—Employed by Julius II. to paint the Apartments of the Vatican—The Subjects chosen for the Sala della Segnatura— The 'Disputa del Sacramento'—Various Opinions respecting this Painting—The Principles of Artistic Idealism—' The School of Athens'—Raphael's Advance in Painting—His Rules of .Art—Pro­ fessor Braun on Raphael's 'Disputa'—Michael Angelo's Influence upon his Art—Raphael and Michael Angelo—Raphael's Position in Rome—La Fornarina—Raphael's Sonnets—His Betrothal with the Niece of the Cardinal—Raphael paints a Portrait of himself for Francesco Francia—Raphael undertakes the Second Hall of the Vatican—' The Mass of Bolsena'—' The Deliverance of Peter'—' The Attala' PAGE 52 CHAPTER V. RAPHAEL UNDER LEO X. 1513-1520. Julius II. and Leo X.—The Loggie—The Cartoons—Raphael decorates the Stanza dell' Incendio—The Sala di Costantino—The Sala de' Palafrenieri—The Influences surrounding Raphael—The Court of Leo X.—Raphael's Portraits—The Prophets and Sibyls—The Galatea —Raphael's Views of Art—Raphael's Architectural Works—Ap­ pointed Architect of St. Peter's—His Design for the Court of the Vatican—Passavant's Opinion of his Architectural Skill—The Universality of his Genius—The Madonna della Sedia—Lo Spasimo di Sicilia—The Madonna di San Sisto—The Transfiguration— •Raphael's Illness and Death . , .115 CHAPTER VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS. RAPHAEL SANTI. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. IN the history of the different arts, certain favoured individuals come conspicuously forward, who, from some especial gift of nature, are able to conceive and to carry out the highest tasks of that art whose votaries they are ; their productions, therefore, form the culmi­ nating point of that art; but such men only appear when the art itself has gone through successive stages of development—stages which seem to a certain extent summed up in their works, and united in them into a perfect whole. These men form the central point of this development; all the earlier efforts of the art con­ verge in them, and they appear to posterity as models, in whom the art has found the highest expression of its ideas that the progress of the age would admit of. The widening stream of life may present, in the future, tasks B 2 EAPHAEL SANTI. more comprehensive still for art to achieve; but we shall ever look back upon those stars of light and guidance as examples, in whom we may perceive that perfect harmony of all the elements of life, which found in them its expression and ideal image. As in all individual development, there is a period at which the man reaches his highest stage of perfection, compared with which the past appears only as a time of preparation and the future one of retrogression; so, too, art has its highest point, at which its utmost power and ability are displayed. The characteristic of both these analogous conditions lies in the perfect unbroken power of the physical and intellectual life, in a state of pure harmony with the conscious mental principle in its phase of equal development. There is an incon­ gruity, on the contrary, in the earlier and subsequent life: in the one the life of sense predominates, in the other that of the mind; the one is full of the impulses of life, without the power of representing them; the other exhibits the prevalence of reflection and study, while the producing power gradually disappears or ex­ hausts itself in works which, in spite of all grandeur of conception, ay, in spite of all the fulness and vigour of life which they exhibit, fail in perfect beauty, THE GREAT MEN OF ART. 3 because either the prevailing idea contained in them has completely absorbed everything that would affect the senses, or this has counterbalanced the force of the idea. These general remarks might be illustrated by the history of any of the different arts, for these, being the highest forms of civilisation, necessarily reflect the process laid down by nature for the cultivation of man. In such an examination, we should see the highest points of the various branches of art attained by in­ dividual men who, equally favoured by natural gifts and by the circumstances of life, have approached most nearly to the pure conception of beauty; men who have created in their art a standard imagined by their predecessors, but no longer attainable by their posterity. Such men, therefore, stand forth as singular phenomena: all the fermenting and chaotic masses of ideas, strug­ gling for form, order, and harmony, reveal themselves to them in magic beauty as in a mirror; the views and forms which a whole age endeavoured to obtain amid dim and irreconcilable ideas, become for the first time fully demonstrated in their works; and these works, bathed in the very ether of beauty, exercise a lasting influence upon the minds of all ages. That perfection to which Sophocles carried the tragic art B2 4 RAPHAEL SANTI. of the Greeks was attained by none after him; and even Euripides, who was held in such esteem for his power of reflection, for his wonderful ability to excite and affect the mind of his audience, and for his im­ pressive ease and magnificence of language, even he, in spite of these brilliant qualities, falls far short of the artistic beauty of his predecessor.