Raphael Santi

Raphael Santi or Raphael Sanzio, Ital. Raffaello Santi or Raffaello Sanzio , 1483-1520, major Italian Renaissance painter, b. Urbino. In Raphael's work is the clearest expression of the exquisite harmony and balance of High Renaissance composition.

Early Training, Influence, and Work

Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, painter at the court of Federigo Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, first taught him the elements of art. About six years after the death of his father (1494) he entered the workshop of Perugino , whose influence is seen in The Crucifixion and The Knight's Dream (both: National Gall., London); Coronation of the Virgin (Vatican); The Three Graces (Chantilly); and the Sposalizio (Brera, Milan). The Colonna altarpiece, representing the Madonna and Saints (Metropolitan Mus.), marks the end of the Perugian period of his work.

The five predella scenes, Agony in the Garden (Metropolitan Mus.), St. Anthony of Padua and St. Francis (both: Dulwich), Procession to Calvary (National Gall., London), and Pietà (Gardner Mus., Boston), give evidence of the new influences of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Masaccio, and, especially, Fra Bartolomeo. Studying the intricacies of anatomy, perspective, and coloring, he achieved a freer, more able, and deeper interpretation than was seen in his earlier work. In Florence (1504-8) he produced numerous Madonnas that are renowned for their sweetness of expression. His self-portrait (Uffizi) and the penetrating portraits of Angelo and Maddalena Doni (Pitti Palace) are also from this period.

Mature Work

At Rome his style matured, benefiting from Michelangelo's influence. In the Vatican, Raphael was wholly responsible for the Stanza della Segnatura (finished 1511); the two largest walls represent, respectively, the School of Athens, portraying the Greek philosophers, and the Triumph of Religion, also called Disputà. On the vault are The Flaying of Marsyas and The Temptation of Eve. The ceiling is devoted to the allegorical figures Law, Philosophy, Poetry, and Theology. Two large lunettes over the windows represent Parnassus and Jurisprudence.

In the Stanza d'Eliodoro Raphael painted (1511-14) The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, The Miracle of Bolsena, The Repulse of Attila from Rome by Leo I, and The Deliverance of St. Peter. He also designed the Incendio del Borgo and painted part of it. Other designs for the Vatican include The Battle of Ostia, The Oath of Leo III before Charlemagne, and The Victory of Constantine over Maxentius; the 52 religious subjects covering one ceiling and known as "Raphael's Bible" were executed by his pupils after his design.

Among the other paintings of his Roman period are the Madonna with the Fish (Prado); Madonna of the Chair (Pitti Palace); the Sistine Madonna (Dresden); Galatea (Farnesina); the Alba Madonna (National Gall. of Art, Washington, D.C.); and the unfinished Transfiguration, completed by Giulio Romano. Portraits of that period include Julius II, long his patron; Baldassare Castiglione (Louvre); Tommaso Inghirami (Gardner Mus., Boston); and Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals.

Other Works and Accomplishments

Having been named (1514) successor to Bramante as chief architect of the Vatican, Raphael also designed a number of churches, palaces, and mansions. For his patron, Leo X, he undertook (1518) a survey of ancient Rome showing the chief monuments. He also designed ten tapestries with themes from the Acts of the Apostles for the Sistine Chapel; seven of the designs are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Raphael was deeply indebted to the sculpture of antiquity for his mythological and biblical figures, and in his interpretation of classical art he achieved a harmony and monumentality emulated far into the 19th cent.

Bibliography

See his complete paintings, introd. by R. Cocke (1966); complete works by M. Salmi et al. (1969); biography by L. Berti (tr. 1961); studies by A. P. Oppé (rev. ed. 1970), J. Pope-Hennessy (1970), and L. Dussler (tr. 1971).

Raphael (1483–1520) ( Raphael Sanzio or Raphael Santi) Italian painter, one of the finest artists of the High Renaissance. Born in Urbino, Raphael absorbed humanism as a child. One of his most important commissions was the decoration of the four stanze (rooms) in the Vatican. He only completed two of these but the first, the Stanza della Segnatura, gave him the chance to exercise his skills to the full. The room contains two large frescos, the School of Athens and the Disputà, both of which show Raphael's mastery of perspective. After Bramante's death, he became architect to St Peter's, Rome.

http://www.christusrex.org; http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk; http://www.nga.gov

Raphael ( Raffaello Sanzio or Santi (1483–1520)). High Renaissance Urbino-born architect and painter of great distinction. Trained by his father, Giovanni Santi (d. 1494), and Pietro Perugino (1445/50–1523), whom he later assisted and soon surpassed, one of his early paintings. The Marriage of the Virgin (1504—far superior to Perugino's version of the same subject), depicts a polygonal domed building indicating a mature understanding of architecture, notably centrally planned buildings. Moving to Rome in 1508, he was commissioned by Pope Julius II (1503–13) to decorate the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, including The School of Athens showing the ancient philosophers in an architectural setting that is a masterpiece of perspective, and evokes Antique Classicism.

His first architectural foray was the Church of Sant'Eligio degli Orefici, Rome (from c.1511, with later dome by Peruzzi, the whole rebuilt by Ponzio in C17). This was followed by the Mortuary Chapel of Agostino Chigi in Santa Maria del Pòpolo, Rome (from 1512), a centrally planned work of great authority owing its present appearance to Bernini, who completed it (1652–6). The Palazzo Pandolfini, Florence (begun c.1518), merged the Florentine style of the Palazzo Strozzi with the Roman style as epitomized in Bramante's ‘House of Raphael’ (Palazzo Caprini), and indeed it was from Bramante that Raphael took his precedents. In turn, his own buildings, though few in number, were soon recognized as exemplars as significant as Antique remains and the works of Bramante. Appointed Superintendent of Roman Antiquities by the Medici Pope Leo X (1513–21), in 1515, he may have been behind proposals to record all Roman ruins and restore some. The Villa Madama, which he began building near Rome (c.1516) for Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the future Pope Clement VII (1523–34), is ample evidence of his feeling for Antiquity, notably in the loggia facing the garden, and aspects of the villa were derived from recently discovered vaults of the Domus Aurea (Golden House) of Nero and the so-called thermae of Titus, as well as from Pliny's description of his Laurentine villa. Embellished with reliefs of stucco and painted grotesques by Raphael's assistants (including Giulio Romano), the ensemble (though only partly completed) was an authoritative evocation of Antique interior décor. After Bramante's death Raphael was appointed magister operis (Master of the Works) of St Peter's, and proposed a basilican version of Bramante's plan.

Bibliography

Cable (1981a);
Chastel (1959, 1988);
C. Frommel et al. (1984);
Heydenreich (1996);
Lotz (1997);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
S. Ray (1974);
Jane Turner (1996);
Tafuri (1966);
R. Weiss (1969);
Wittkower (1982, 1998)