The Life of Raphael of Urbino, Painter and Architect [1483-1520] How generous and kind Heaven sometimes proves to be when it brings together in a single person the boundless riches of its treasures and all those graces and rare gifts that over a period of time are usually divided among many individuals can clearly be seen in the no less excellent than gracious Raphael Sanzio of Urbino. He was by nature endowed with all the modesty and kind- ness that is usually seen in those who, more than others, possess an innately gentle humanity joined to a beautifully graceful affability that always showed itself sweet and pleasing with every kind of person and in every kind of circumstance. Nature created him as a gift to the world: after having been vanquished by art in the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti, it wished to be vanquished through Raphael by both art and moral habits as well. And truthfully, most of the artisans up to that time had received from Nature a certain trace of madness and wildness •which, besides making them unmindful and eccentric, had also caused them, on many occasions, to reveal inside themselves the shadow and darkness of vices rather than the clarity and splendour of those virtues which make men immortal. Hence, Nature had ample cause, on the other hand, to make clearly resplendent in Raphael all those rare virtues of mind, accom- panied by as much grace, study, beauty, modesty, and fine manners as would have sufficed to cover up any flaw, no matter how ugly, or any blemish, no matter how large. As a result, it is safe to say that those who possess as many rare gifts as were seen in Raphael from Urbino are not simple mortals 3O6 RAPHAEL but (if it is permitted to speak in this way) mortal gods, and that those who by their endeavours leave behind in this world an honoured name in the annals of fame can also hope to enjoy a worthy reward in Heaven for their hard work and merit. Now Raphael was born in Urbino, a most famous city in Italy, in the year 1483, on Good Friday at three o'clock in the morning, of Giovanni de' Santi, a painter of no great talent but truly a man of good intellect, capable of directing his chil- dren towards the proper path which, through bad fortune, had not been shown to him in his youth. And Giovanni knew how important it was for children to be brought up on their mother's milk rather than on a nursemaid's; and so when Raphael (whom he baptized with this name as a sign of good luck) was born, Giovanni insisted that, since he had no other children before or afterwards, Raphael's own mother should nurse him, and that during his tender years he •would be taught how to behave by his parents rather than by the peasants and common folk with their rude and unrefined habits and beliefs. Once he had grown, Giovanni began to train him in painting, since he saw that he had a great predilec- tion and a real talent for this art. As a result, not many years had passed before Raphael, still a young boy, was of great assistance to Giovanni in many works that he executed in the state of Urbino. Finally, when this good and loving father realized that his son could learn very little from him, he resolved to take him to Pietro Perugino who, as he was told, ranked first among the painters of that time; and so he went to Perugia, but failing to find Pietro there, he began to work in San Francesco on several paintings in order to await him with greater ease. But once Pietro returned from Rome, Giovanni, who was a well- mannered and courteous man, became his friend, and, when the time seemed right, he explained his wish to Pietro in the most suitable way he knew how. And thus Pietro, who was very gracious and an admirer of fine talents, accepted Raphael, whereupon Giovanni joyfully returned to Urbino, and, taking the young lad, despite many tears from the boy's mother who loved him tenderly, he brought him to Perugia RAPHAEL 307 where Pietro, seeing Raphael's style of drawing and his beau- tiful manners and moral habits, formed a judgement about him which time and his works later proved to be perfectly accurate. It is remarkable that while Raphael studied Pietro's style, he imitated it so exactly and in all its details that his portraits could not be distinguished from his master's ori- ginals, nor could his own paintings be distinguished with any certainty from those of Pietro, as is still demonstrated at San Francesco in Perugia by some figures that Raphael •worked on in an oil panel for Madonna Madalcna degli Oddi, and these include: the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven; Her Coronation by Jesus Christ; and, below, the Twelve Apostles around the tomb contemplating the celestial splen- dour. At the foot of the panel in a prcdella with small figures, which is divided into three scenes, there is the figure of Our Lady receiving the Annunciation from the angel; the Ador- ation of Christ by the Wise Men; and the Presentation in the Temple -with Christ in Simeon's arms. This work is certainly done with extreme care, and anyone unfamiliar •with the style would absolutely believe it to be by Pietro, -whereas it is undoubtedly by Raphael.* After completing this painting, Pietro went to Florence to attend to some business of his own, and, after leaving Perugia, Raphael went off with some friends to Citta del Castello, where he painted a panel in Pietro's style for Sant'Agostino and another of a Crucifixion in a similar style for San Domenico, which everyone would have believed to be a -work by Pietro rather than by Raphael, had the young painter's name not been written on it. Also in San Francesco in the same city he did a small panel painting of the Marriage of the Virgin, which clearly reveals the growth of Raphael's skill as he refined Pietro's style and then surpassed it.* In this work, a temple is drawn in perspective with so much love and atten- tion that it is amazing to see the difficult problems Raphael sought to confront in such an exercise. While Raphael acquired great fame by painting in this style, Pinturicchio was commissioned by Pope Pius II* to decorate the Library of the Duomo in Siena, and since Pinturicchio was a friend of Raphael and knew him to be 308 RAPHAEL a very fine draughtsman, he brought him to Siena, where Raphael executed some of the designs and cartoons for that project; and the reason Raphael did not continue was that while in Siena he heard several painters extol with the greatest praise the cartoon that Leonardo da Vinci had executed for the Hall of the Pope in Florence containing a group of extremely fine horses projected for the Great Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, as well as some nudes Michelangelo did in com- petition with Leonardo which were much better.* Because of the love he always bore for excellence in painting, Raphael became so eager to see these cartoons that he set aside his work and every personal advantage and convenience and went to Florence.* Upon his arrival, he was as delighted by the city as by the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo, which he considered divine, and he decided to live there for a while; and so, having become friends with some of the young painters (including Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Aristotele San Gallo, and others),* Raphael -was greatly honoured in the city, especially by Taddeo Taddei, who always wanted him in his home and at his table, since he was a man who loved all men of talent. And in order not to be outdone in kindness, Raphael, who was courtesy itself, painted two pictures for him which reflect both the initial style of Pietro and the other and much better style which he learned later through study, as will be recounted. These pictures are still in the home of Taddeo's heirs.* Raphael also became a close friend of Lorenzo Nasi, who had recently taken a wife, and he did a painting for him in which he showed a young boy between the knees of Our Lady to whom a youthful Saint John joyfully offers a bird,* to the great delight and pleasure of both children. In the poses of both, there is a certain childish simplicity which is wholly charming, and, in addition, they are so carefully coloured, and carried out with such diligence that they seem more to be made of living flesh than of painted colours. Likewise, Raphael's Madonna possesses an expression that is truly full of grace and divinity, and, to sum up, the plain, the landscape, and all the rest of the work are extremely beautiful. This painting was held by Lorenzo Nasi in the greatest veneration RAPHAEL 3O9 while he was alive, as much in memory of Raphael, -who had been his close friend, as for the dignity and excellence of the work. But in the year 1548 on the seventeenth of August, the painting met an unfortunate fate when Lorenzo's house, along with the extremely ornate and beautiful houses of the heirs of Marco del Nero and other nearby houses, collapsed during a landslide on Monte San Giorgio. Nevertheless, after the fragments of the work were recovered from beneath the rubble of ruined masonry, they were put back together again in the best way possible by Battista, son of the aforesaid Lorenzo, who was a great lover of art.* After having completed these works, Raphael was forced to leave Florence and to go to Urbino where, following the death of his mother and his father Giovanni, all his affairs were going to ruin.* Thus, while staying there, for Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, then commander of the Florentine armies, he painted two small Madonnas in his later style which were extremely beautiful.