Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/94

 in design or color. Raffaelle stood alone, but aimed at producing works with a degree of perfection beyond the united efforts of Michael Angelo and F. Sebastiano, combining in himself a fertile imagination, ideal beauty founded on a correct imitation of the Greek style, grace, ease, amenity, and a universality of genius in every department of art. The noble determination of triumphing in such a powerful contest animated him night and day, and allowed him no respite. It also animated him to surpass both his rivals and himself in every new work."

RAFFAELLE'S TRANSFIGURATION.

"This great artist" (Michael Angelo), says Vasari, "had felt some uneasiness at the growing fame of Raffaelle, and he gladly availed himself of the powers of Sebastiano del Piombo, as a colorist, in the hope that, assisted by his designs, he might be enabled to enter the lists successfully with his illustrious antagonist, if not to drive him from the field. With this view, he furnished him with the designs for the Pietà in the church of the Conventuali at Viterbo, and the Transfiguration and Flagellation, in S. Pietro in Montorio, at Rome, which, as he was very tedious in the process, occupied him six years." It was at this juncture that the Cardinal de Medici commissioned Raffaelle to paint a picture of the Transfiguration, and in order to stimulate the rivalry, he engaged Sebastiano to paint one of the Resurrection of Lazarus, of precisely the same dimensions,