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Joe Catalano
Joe Catalano
B. Wolf
EGL 201
11/14/2013
Raphael
The Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael is widely considered, along with
Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, as part of the trinity of masters from that period. While
modern eras have more popularly and stylistically mimicked the works of both da Vinci and
Michaelangelo, Raphael’s works in the mediums of paint and architecture were often critically
received as transcendent, even among his contemporaries in the trinity of the High Renaissance
period.
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (usually known by just his first name, as the surnames given
during this time period were to denote place of origin) was born between March 28th and April
6th, 1483 in the city of Urbino, located in the Marche region of Italy. His father, Giovanni Santi,
was a court painter to the Duke of Urbino, allowing a young Raphael access to an education
someone born into a lower class of individuals might not have had. In 1491, Raphael was
reputedly placed in an apprenticeship with the master painter Pietro Perugino at the age of eight.
His mother, Magia, would die that same year, followed by the death of his father in 1494.
Orphaned at the age of 11, Raphael was passed into the care of his paternal uncle, Bartolomeo,
who was a priest. Still working under the apprenticeship of Perugino, Raphael completed his first
documented commissioned work in 1501, which was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of
Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Citta de Castello, a town situated between Perugia and Urbino. In
the years that followed, he would paint several works for other churches in the area, including his
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“Mond Crucifixion” in 1503, the Oddi Altarpiece and the Brera Wedding of the Virgin in 1504.
Around this time, Raphael had also begun his foray into painting madonnas and portraits, until
his departure to Florence in late 1504. It was during this period of sporadic residency in
Florence, between 1504 and 1508, that Raphael met the famed artist Leonardo da Vinci, who at
this time was 30 years his senior. Raphael would learn from da Vinci and incorporate many of
his own ideas into da Vinci’s styles by the time of Leonardo’s departure from Florence in 1506.
By the end of 1508, Raphael had moved to Rome at the invitation of Pope Julius II, where he
would spend the remainder of his short life. Upon his arrival, Raphael was immediately
commissioned to complete a fresco in what was intended to become the Pope’s private library in
the Vatican. Once finished, this room, now known as the “Stanza della Segnatura” sent
shockwaves through the world of Roman art, and to this day is regarded as his greatest
masterpiece. Upon completion of his first Fresco, Raphael was given further rooms to paint,
displacing many master artists in the process, which continued past the death of Pope Julius II in
1513 and well into the reign of Pope Leo X. During his time in Rome, Raphael lived in veritable
a palace designed by Bramante, and became engaged to a woman named Maria Bibbiena, a niece
of Cardinal Medici Bibbiena, though they never married. In spite of his engagement, Raphael
was said to have carried on many affairs. A prominent fixture in his personal life, however, was a
woman named Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker from Siena. According to Giorgio
Vasari, a close friend, confidante, mentor and fellow master painter, Raphael’s premature death
at the age of 37 on April 6th, 1520 was caused by a night of excessive sexual relations with the
girl, which caused him to fall ill with Fever (Hall, 2005). Refusing to divulge the true nature of
his illness, the doctors gave Raphael the wrong cure, which led his symptoms to persist, killing
him.
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The life of Raphael, while tragically short, was nonetheless incredibly artistically dense.
From the time of his initial apprenticeship to Pietro Perugia to the time of his death at age 37, he
had completed no less than 98 different works, outpacing Michelangelo by more than 20 and
Leonardo da Vinci by several dozens. His productivity can be attributed to the unusually large
workshop he employed, which eventually consisted of upwards of fifty pupils, each of whom
became a renowned artist in their own right. This was, arguably, the single largest establishment
under any single master painter during the entirety of the renaissance, if not any classical period;
it included the fifty pupils of Raphael, potentially in addition to several other master painters and
their teams of pupils in roles as sub-contractors (Raphael - The Complete Works, 2013). This
fantastically large establishment allowed Raphael to not only churn out his works with regular
frequency, but also allowed him to turn those works in which he would mimic and improve upon
the styles of other master painters into projects that were critically acclaimed beyond their
predecessors. An example of this type of transcendence in scope, would be his masterpiece “The
School of Athens,” in which a portrait of Michelangelo himself makes an appearance as the
Greek character Heraclitus, the painting style of which very clearly mimicked the ignudi (the
twenty seated nude figures) and sybils from the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. For this,
Michelangelo would accuse Raphael of plagiarism until his death. Raphael’s own style was
heavily influenced by his apprenticeship to Pietro Perugino, perhaps more than any other.
According to the Swiss art historian Heinrich Wolfllin, “probably no other pupil of genius has
ever absorbed so much of his masters teaching as Raphael did” (Osborne, 2003 p. 73). In
addition to being influenced by Perugino, Raphael’s own style was heavily influenced by
Leonardo da Vinci. During the time Raphael spent in Florence, much of his work began to take
on much more dynamism and complexity with respect to his human figures, a staple of da
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Vinci’s work and something we don’t see in the paintings of Raphael prior to his years in
Florence. The methods of the painter Raphael varied from project to project, though a single
consistent preparatory element can be cited and physically found throughout the entirety of his
works. Raphael is frequently hailed as one of the finest draftsmen in the history of western art,
and his drawings have been engraved by other artists, such as Raimondi’s “Lucretia,” as works
of their own. When planning a composition, Raphael would reputedly lay out a large number of
stock drawings on his floor, and begin to draw “rapidly,” borrowing figures from here or there.
Many art historians lament that in the final years of Raphael’s workshop, his drawings prove to
be far and away of better quality than the paintings, as much of his time and attention were spent
on his work at the Vatican, with his apprentices and pupils filling in the drawings of work he had
been commissioned to complete.
The critical reception of Raphael’s works was, in his time, even higher and more
positively praised than other masters of the Renaissance period, such as Leonardo da Vinci,
Girgio Vasari, Pietro Perugino or Michelangelo. Praised as a master of incorporating the styles of
other artists into his own, and even improving upon them, Raphael was highly admired by his
contemporaries, though his influence on artistic style during the High Renaissance was decidedly
less than that of Michelangelo. In spite of this, the opinion of most modern and classical art
historians and critics is and was that Raphael was the ideal balanced painter; in “The Cambridge
Companion to Raphael,” art historian and critic Anthony Blunt states that “[the opinion]…was
generally held in the middle of the sixteenth century that Raphael was the ideal balanced painter,
universal in his talent, satisfying all the absolute standards, and obeying all the rules which were
supposed to govern the arts, whereas Michelangelo was the eccentric genius, more brilliant than
any other artists in his particular field, the drawing of the male nude, but unbalanced and lacking
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in certain qualities, such as grace and restraint, essential to the great artist” (Osborne, 2005 p.
76). Raphael’s greatest period of artistic influence came between the 17th and 19th centuries,
when his perfect balance and decorum were widely studied and admired. During this time, his
compositions would go on to become the basis for the training programs for the Academies of
Art. Raphael’s most influential and renowned works are the four rooms of the Vatican he was
commissioned to paint. The first and most famous, the Stanza della Segnatura, was the study
housing the library of Pope Julius II. The first wall of this room to be completed was called “The
Disputation of the Holy Sacrament,” completed in 1509. Raphael’s most famous fresco, residing
on the opposite wall of “Disputa” is called “The School of Athen’s.” It is widely regarded as
Raphael’s most famous fresco, and was completed in 1510. Completed in 1511, the third wall
was called “The Parnassus” and the fourth wall was called “The Cardinal Virtues,” and
completed near the end of 1511. The second room Raphael was to paint, “Stanza dell'incendio
del Borgo,” was prepared as a music room for the successor to Pope Julius II, Pope Leo X.
Though Raphael designed the frescoes, his apprentices would ultimately finish the painting. The
third room, “Stanza di Eliodoro,” was completed by Raphael in 1514. The final room, “Sala di
Costantino,” was one Raphael would never paint, nor see, as his untimely death at the age of 37
would predate the painting and completion of his final masterpiece by nearly four years.
Together, these four rooms consist of the greatest and most influential of the artist’s works,
forming the “Stanze di Raffaello” (The Raphael Rooms), Raphael’s final masterpiece and legacy.
The artist Raphael is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance. His
works and masterpieces have influenced centuries of contemporary and modern art, and his style
has been cemented in the teachings of the Academies of Art. Along with his fellow grand
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masters of the High Renaissance period, Raphael was and has been one of greatest and most
influential artists in human history.
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Works Cited
Hall, Marcia B.. The Cambridge companion to Raphael. New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press, 2005. Print.
Osborne, June, and Joe Cornish. "The renaissance Ideal." Urbino: the story of a Renaissance
city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. 73. Print.
"Raphael - The complete works." Raphael - The complete works. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.raphaelsanzio.org/>.