[Born at Urbino, in Italy, 1483. Died at Rome, 1520. Aged 37.]
The founder of the Roman school of painting. He was the son of a
painter, and the pupil of Perugino, whom his first style resembles, and
whom he quickly surpassed. He was already eminent in his art at the age
of seventeen. In 1506, he first saw Michael Angelo’s great and
celebrated “Cartoon of Pisa,” and a closer study of anatomy and form is
manifest in his works after this time. In 1508, in the pontificate of
Julius II., he was invited to Rome, where he continued until his death,
painting his exquisite frescos in the Vatican. Whilst executing these
works, Michael Angelo was completing the Sistine chapel, and a rivalry
arose between these two consummate artists, which was never
extinguished. Raffaelle was a sculptor and architect as well as painter.
In 1514, he directed the works at St. Peter’s, and was subsequently very
zealous in superintending the exhumation of the remains of antique art,
and in designing a restoration of ancient Rome. In the midst of his fine
labours, he contracted a fever and died. In his works, beauty of Form is
the expression of the utmost elevation of mind and perfect purity of
soul. Some of Raffaelle’s cartoons on scriptural subjects are at Hampton
Court Palace. Several of his pictures are in France, obtained by Francis
I., who tried in vain to allure Raffaelle to his capital. His
“Transfiguration,” in the Vatican, left unfinished at his death, and
carried in his own funeral procession, is considered by some the finest
picture in the world. It was finished by his pupil, Giulio Romano.
Little or nothing is known of his private life, save that his nature was
sweet and gracious, and that all men loved him. He was of a slender
frame, and five feet seven inches high. His skull was beautifully
formed.
[Raffaelle was buried in the Pantheon at Rome, now called Sta. Maria
Ritonda. His tomb was ordered by himself, and executed by Lorenzo
Lotti, who, it is said, restored one of the ancient tabernacles there
at Raffaelle’s request, and added an altar, with a figure of the
Virgin. Upon this monument there is a bust of him by Paolo Naldini, a
sculptor who lived in the early part of the 17th century. The tomb was
opened in 1833, and the remains were found entire, so that the skull
long exhibited in the Academy of S. Luke as that of Raffaelle was
proved to be a fabulous relic. Portraits of Raffaelle are to be found
in several celebrated pictures; in the Duomo and Sacristy of Siena, in
the Borghese Gallery at Rome, and one by his own hand in the picture
of St. Luke; but the most authentic one, and that which alone
possesses the beautiful expression of his remarkable countenance, is
the picture by himself in the Gallery of Portraits of Painters by
their own hands at Florence. This bust is from one probably by Carlo
Maratta, a great admirer and copier of Raffaelle’s works, and who
presented it to the Capitoline Museum. There was in 1791, in the Spada
Palace at Rome, a portrait of Raffaelle when 12 years old, by himself.
(See “Martyn’s Tour in Italy,” p. 242.)]