Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/293

Rh RAPHAEL 275 and his touch can with more or less certainty be traced in some of Perugino's panels which were executed about 1502. Many of those who, like Messrs Crowe and Cavalcaselle, adopt the earlier date of Raphael's apprenticeship believe that his hand is visible in the execution of the beautiful series of frescos by Perugino in the Sala del Cambio, dated 1500; as does also M. Miintz in his excellent Raphael, sa Vie, Paris, 1881, in spite of his accepting the end of 1499 as the period of Raphael's first entering Perugino's studio, two statements almost impossible to reconcile. Considering that Raphael was barely seventeen when these frescos were painted, it is hardly reasonable to attribute the finest heads to his hand ; nor did he at an early age master the difficulties of fresco buono. The Resurrection of Christ in the Vatican and the Diotalevi Madonna in the Berlin Museum are the principal pictures by Perugino in parts of which the touch of Raphael appears to be visible, though any real certainty on this point is unattainable. 1 About 1502 Raphael began to execute independent works; four pictures for churches at Citta di Castello were probably the earliest of these, and appear to have been painted in the years 1502-4. The first is a guild- banner painted on one side with the Trinity, and below, kneeling figures of S. Sebastian and S. Rocco ; on the reverse is a Creation of Eve, very like Perugino in style, but possessing more grace and breadth of treatment. These are still in the church of S. Trinita. 2 Also for Citta di Castello were the coronation of S. Niccolo Tolentino, now destroyed, though studies for it exist at Oxford and Lille (Gaz. d. B. Arts, 1878, i. p. 48), and the Crucifixion, now in the Dudley collection, painted for the church of S. Domenico, and signed RAPHAEL VRBINAS P. It is a panel 8 feet 6 inches high by 5 feet 5 inches wide, and contains noble figures of the Virgin, St John, St Jerome, and St Mary Magdalene. The fourth painting executed for this town, for the church of S. Francesco, is the exquisitely beautiful and highly finished Sposalizio, now in the Brera at Milan, signed and dated RAPHAEL VRBINAS MDIIII. This is closely copied both in com- position and detail from Perugino's painting of the same subject now at Caen, but is far superior to it in sweetness of expression and grace of attitude. The Temple of Jerusalem, a domed octagon with outer ambulatory in Perugino's picture, is reproduced with slight alterations by Raphael, and the attitudes and grouping of the figures are almost exactly the same in both. The Connestabile Madonna is one of Raphael's finest works, painted during his Perugian period ; it is a round panel ; the motive, the Virgin reading a book of hours, is a favourite one with him, as it was with his father Giovanni. This lovely picture was lost to Perugia in 1871, when Count Connes- tabile sold it to the emperor of Russia for 13,200. Second or Florentine Period, 1504-1508. From 1504 to 1508 Raphael's life was very stirring and active. In the first half of 1504 he visited Urbino, where he painted two small panels for Duke Guidobaldo, the St George and the St Michael of the Louvre. His first and for him mo- mentous visit to Florence was made towards the end of 1504, when he presented himself with a warm letter of recommendation 3 from his patroness Joanna della Rovere 1 Parts of Perugino's beautiful triptych of the Madonna, with the archangels Raphael and Michael, painted for the Certosa near Pavia and now in the National Gallery of London, have been attributed to Raphael, but with little reason. Perugino's grand altar-piece at Florence of the Assumption of the Virgin shows that he was quite capable of painting figures equal in beauty and delicacy to the St Michael of the Certosa triptych. See Frizzoni, L'Arte Italiana nella Gal. Nat. di Londra, Florence, 1880. 2 For an account of processional banners painted by distinguished artists, see Mariotti, Letter e pittoriche Pemgine, p. 76 sq. 3 This letter, which still exists, was sold in Paris in 1856, and is now in private hands. to the gonfaloniere Pier Soderini. In Florence Raphael was kindly received, and, in spite of his youth (being barely of age), was welcomed as an equal by the majority of those great artists who at that time had raised Florence to a pitch of artistic celebrity far above all other cities of the world. At the time of his arrival the whole of artistic Italy was being excited to enthusiasm by the cartoons of the battle of Anghiari and the war with Pisa, on which Da Vinci and Michelangelo were then devoting their utmost energies (see LEONARDO and MICHELANGELO). To describe the various influences under which Raphael came and the many sources from which he drank in stores of artistic knowledge would be to give a complete history of Florentine art in the 15th century. 4 With astonishing rapidity he shook off the mannerisms of Perugino, and put one great artist after another under contribution for some special power of drawing, beauty of colour, or grace of composition in which each happened to excel. Nor was it from painters only that Raphael acquired his enlarged field of knowledge and rapidly growing powers. Sculptors like Ghiberti and Donatello must be numbered among those whose works helped to develop his new-born style. 5 The Carmine frescos of Masaccio and Masolino taught this eager student long -remembered lessons of methods of dramatic expression. 6 Among his contemporaries it was especially Signorelli and Michelangelo who taught him the importance of precision of line and the necessity of a thorough knowledge of the human form. 7 From Da Vinci he learned subtleties of modelling and soft beauty of expression, 8 from Fra Bartolomeo nobility of composi- tion and skilful treatment of drapery in dignified folds. 9 The friendship between Raphael and the last of these was very close and lasted for many years. The architect Baccio d'Agnolo was another of his special friends, at whose house the young painter enjoyed social intercourse with a large circle of the chief artists of Florence, and probably learned from him much that was afterwards use- ful in his practice as an architect. The transition in Raphael's style from his first or Perugian to his second or Florentine manner is well shown in the large picture of the Coronation of the Virgin painted for Maddalena degli Oddi, now in the Vatican, one of the most beautiful that he ever produced, and especially re- markable for its strong religious sentiment, in this respect a great contrast to the paintings of his last or Roman manner which hang near it. The exquisite grace of the angel musicians and the beauty of the faces show signs of his short visit to Florence, while the general formality of the composition and certain details, such as the flutter- ing ribbands of the angels, recall peculiarities of Perugino and of Pinturicchio, with whose fine picture of the same subject hung close by it is interesting to compare it. Raphael's painting, though by far the more beautiful of the two, is yet inferior to that of Pinturicchio in the composition of the whole ; an awkward horizontal line divides the upper group of the Coronation from that below, the apostles standing round the Virgin's tomb, filled with roses and lilies (Dante, Par., xxiii. 73), while the older Perugian has skilfully united the two groups by a less formal arrangement of the figures. The predella of this masterpiece of Raphael is also in the Vatican; some of 4 See Minghetti, "I Maestri di RafFaello, " in the Xuova Antologia, 1st August 1881. 5 See his sketch of St George and the Dragon in the Uffizi, largely taken from Donatello's pedestal relief outside Or San Michele. 6 See his cartoon of St Paul preaching at Athens (South Kensington Museum). 7 See many of his life-studies, especially the one he sent to Albert Diirer, now at Vienna. 8 See the portrait of Maddalena Doni in the Pitti. 9 See the Madonna del Baldacchino in the Pitti.