Raphael Sanzio

Second or Florentine Period, 1504-1508.

In the first half of 1504 Raphael visited Urbino, where he painted two small panels for Duke Guidobaldo, the St. George and the St. Michael of the Louvre. His first visit to Florence was made towards the end of 1504, when he presented himself with a warm letter of recommendation from his patroness Joanna della Rovere to the gonfaloniere Pier Soderini. At the time of his arrival in Florence artistic Italy was excited over the cartoons of the battle of Anghiari and the war with Pisa, to which Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were then devoting their energies. With aston ishing rapidity Raphael shook off the mannerisms of Perugino and put one great artist in painting or sculpture after another under contribution for some special power of drawing, beauty of colour, or grace of composition in which each happened to excel. The Carmine frescoes of Masaccio and Masolino taught this eager student long-remembered lessons of methods of dramatic expression. (See his cartoon of St. Paul preaching at Athens [Victoria and Albert Museum].) Among his contempo raries it was especially Signorelli and Michelangelo who taught him the necessity of a thorough knowledge of the human form. From da Vinci he learnt subtleties of modelling and soft beauty of expression (see the portrait of Maddalena Doni in the Pitti), from Fra Bartolommeo nobility of composition and skilful treat ment of drapery in dignified folds. (See the Madonna del Bal dacchino in the Pitti.) The friendship between Raphael and the last of these was very close. The architect Baccio d'Agnolo was another of his friends, at whose house the young painter enjoyed social intercourse with the chief artists of Florence, and probably learnt from him much that was afterwards useful in his practice as an architect.

The transition in Raphael's style from his first or Perugian to his second or Florentine manner is 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 pro duced, and especially remarkable for its strong religious senti ment—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 shows signs of his short visit to Florence, while the formality of the composition and certain details, such as the fluttering ribands 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. The predella of this masterpiece of Raphael is also in the Vatican; some of its small paintings, especially that of the Annunciation to the Virgin, display his careful study of the rules of perspective. Preparatory sketches for this picture exist at Lille and elsewhere. The Lille study is drawn from two youths in the ordinary dress of the time; and it is interesting to compare it with his later studies from the nude, many of which are for figures which in the future picture were to be draped. It was at Florence, as Vasari says, that Raphael began serious life studies, not only from nude models but also by making careful anatomical drawings from dissected corpses and from skeletons.

His first visit to Florence lasted only a few months; in 1505 he was again in Perugia painting his first fresco, the Trinity and Saints, for the Camaldoli monks of San Severo, now a mere wreck from injury and restorations. The date MDV and the signature were added later, probably in 1521. Part of this work was left incomplete by the painter, and the fresco was finished in 1521 (after his death) by his old master Perugino. It was probably earlier than this that Raphael visited Siena and assisted Pin turicchio with sketches for his Piccolomini frescoes. He probably

had no hand in the actual execution of the paintings. The Madonna of S. Antonio (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) was also finished in 1505, but was probably begun before the Florentine visit. A record of his visit to Siena exists in a sketch of the antique marble group of the Three Graces, then in the cathedral library, from which, not long afterwards, he painted the small panel of the same subject now at Chantilly.

In 1506 Raphael was again in Urbino, where he painted for the duke another picture of St. George, which was borne to Eng land as a present to Henry VII. by Guidobaldo's ambassador, the accomplished Baldassare Castiglione (q.v.), a friend of Raphael, whose noble portrait of him is in the Louvre. At the court of Duke Guidobaldo the painter's ideas appear to have been led into a more secular direction, and to this stay in Urbino prob ably belong the Chantilly Graces and the miniature "Knight's Dream of Duty and Pleasure" in the National Gallery (London), which also possesses its cartoon in brown ink, pricked for trans ference.

Towards the end of 1506 Raphael returned to Florence, and there (before 1508) produced a large number of his finest works, carefully finished, and for the most part wholly the work of his own hand. The following is a list of some of his chief paint ings of this period: the "Madonna del Gran Duca" (Pitti) ; "Madonna del Giardino," 1506 (Vienna) ; "Holy Family with the Lamb," 1506 or 1507 (Madrid) ; the "Ansidei Madonna," 1506 or 1507 (National Gallery) ; the Borghese "Entombment," 1507; The Panshanger "Madonna" (now in America), 1508; "La bella Giardiniera," 1508 (Louvre) ; the "Eszterhazy Madonna," probably the same year, as well as the "Madonna del Cardellino" (Uffizi), the "Tempi Madonna" (Munich), the "Colonna Ma donna" (Berlin), the "Bridgewater Madonna" (Bridgewater House), and the "Orleans Madonna" (Chantilly). The "Ansidei Madonna" was bought in 1884 for the National Gallery from the duke of Marlborough. It was painted for the Ansidei family of Perugia as an altar-piece in the church of S. Fiorenzo, and is a work of the highest beauty in colour, well preserved. The Virgin with veiled head is seated on a throne, supporting the Infant with one hand and holding a book in the other. Below stands S. Niccolo Tolentino, for whose altar it was painted; he holds a book and a crozier, and is clad in jewelled mitre and green cope, under which appear the alb and cassock. On the other side is the Baptist, in red mantle and camel's-hair tunic, holding a crystal cross. The rich jewellery in this picture is painted with Flemish-like minuteness. A favourite method of grouping his Holy Families is that seen in the "Madonna del Cardellino" and the "Bella Giardiniera," in which the main lines form a pyramid. This arrangement is also used in the "Madonna del Giardino" and in the larger group, including St. Joseph and St. Elizabeth, known as the "Canigiani Holy Family," now at Munich. The "Entombment of Christ," now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, was painted during a visit to Perugia in 1507 for Lady Atalanta Baglioni, in memory of the death of her brave and handsome but treacherous son Grifonetto, who was killed in 1500 by his enemies the Oddi party. (See Symonds, Sketches in Italy, the chapter on Perugia, mainly taken from the contempo rary chronicle of Matarazzo.) The many studies and preliminary sketches for this important picture which exist in various collec tions show that it cost Raphael an unusual amount of thought and labour in its composition. It is, however, much injured by re painting. The "Madonna del Baldacchino," owing much to Fra Bartolommeo, is also unsatisfactory in execution; being left un finished by Raphael, it was completed by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo.