Raphael's World

By Michael Collins

Hailed by his contemporaries as “the divine painter,” Raphael Sanzio of Urbino ( 1483-1520) was one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance. A contemporary of Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael was sought out by popes, kings and aristocrats to decorate their residences.

Michael Collins’ new biography, Raphael’s World, portrays the era in which the divine painter lived. Born thirty years after the invention of the printing press and nine years before the discovery of the New World, Raphael harnessed the new techniques of printing and the riches which flowed from the Americas into Europe in the early 16th century. The political map of Europe was changing as Raphael painted for his wealthy patrons. Pope Julius II commissioned him to decorated his apartments at the Vatican while Pope Leo X appointed him architect of the new St. Peter’s which replaced the 1000 year old Constaintinian basilica. While Raphael painted the Apostolic Palace and designed tapestries to be hung in the Sistine Chapel, a German friar, Martin Luther was about to rend Christendom apart.

Raphael’s World brings the reader into the ducal court of Urbino, and follows the young Raphael to Perugia where he studied in the studio of Perugino, to Florence where he saw  Michaelangelo and Da Vinci at work, to Rome where he painted for popes and cardinals, as well as Agostino Chigi, one of the wealthiest patrons of the day.

Based on contemporary documentation, Raphael’s World explores the complex era in which the artist flourished and introduces the reader to the fascinating panoply of patrons. This is a large format book full of colour reproductions of the artist's work and other events of that era. 

The 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael occurred on 6 April 2020.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Messenger Publications
• Release date: Apr 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781788121484

Michael Collins

Michael Collins was born in Rome in 1930. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy, he entered the newly independent Air Force, becoming a fighter pilot and experimental test pilot. He was one of the third group of astronauts named by NASA in 1963. On his first mission, Gemini 10, he set a world altitude record and became the nation’s third spacewalker. His second flight was as command module pilot of the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon in July 1969. He is retired major general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and has received numerous decorations and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Collier Trophy. He is now retired and lives in South Florida. Carrying the Fire is his memoir.

Book preview

Preface

Half a millennium after his death in 1520, the works of the High Renaissance artist, Raphael, still make us pause to contemplate his genius.

In his day, popes, prelates and princes vied with one another for Raphael to paint their portraits or decorate their residences. A large number of wealthy patrons requested his services in order to have their portraits painted for posterity. Several of his works were commissioned as gifts for royal courts.

Raphael was born thirty years after the Fall of Constantinople and the invention of the first moveable type printing press in Germany. When Raphael was eleven, Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic from Europe in search of a western route to China and India. Three years before Raphael’s death in 1520, Martin Luther called for reform in the Catholic Church, a move which led to decades of violent political and social unrest across Europe. These events were to indirectly affect Raphael and shape his world.

The young Raphael was tutored by his father, a noted artist, who fostered his son’s precocious talent. Raphael was fortunate to be born in Italy where artists produced evermore beautiful works and found ready patronage in the Church and the developing merchant classes.

From the sophisticated court of Urbino to the papal court in Rome, Raphael collected admirers and generous patrons. Working at the very summit of the High Renaissance in Italy, he adapted rapidly to new techniques and had an ability to absorb styles and techniques from other artists and combine them into novel forms. While his early training was in tempera, he successfully mastered fresco and oils, and later adapted some of his designs to woven fabrics and new techniques of engraving. From his preparatory drawings and designs, we can see that Raphael worked with extraordinary concentration and discipline. These qualities, combined with his innate talent, explain his enviable success.

Bust of Raffaello Sanzio, known as Raphael. In the background is a fresco painted by the artist. Chapel of San Severo, Perugia, Italy. Photograph: Eavide Zanin / Shutterstock

Contemporaries attest to Raphael’s charm and grace. Physically handsome, he impressed those whom he met by his courtesy and confidence. Raphael’s works show a versatility and spontaneity which delighted his patrons. He moved with ease from depicting the Madonna and Christ Child to a semi-naked portrait of a presumed lover.

There is so much we do not know about Raphael. Barely a handful of documents survive in his own hand and even these furnish us with little personal information. To understand Raphael, we must look to his surviving works and hundreds of preparatory drawings. These show the development of his thought and interests and open a window on to the world in which he lived.

While Raphael undoubtedly learned the rudiments of art in his father’s bottega, or studio, scholars are divided over his first formal master. Many believe that he studied at the bottega of the Umbrian artist, Pietro Vannucci, known as il Perugino, yet there is no documentation to support the claim. It is possible that he simply remained in his father’s bottega, after the latter’s death in 1494.

Artists in Raphael’s day did not paint purely for pleasure. They worked to a commission. Pigments were expensive and no artist could afford to produce a panel or canvas in the hopes of finding a buyer. Raphael was fortunate in his patrons, who recognised his genius and had the means to commission significant works.

Undoubtedly, Raphael’s meeting with Pope Julius II (1503–13) assured his success at the papal court. The pontiff was determined to restore Rome after centuries of neglect and make it a worthy seat of the papacy. In gratitude for Raphael’s art, the pope conferred on him the Knighthood of the Golden Spur.

Pope Leo X (1513–21) was an even greater admirer of Raphael. A member of the Florentine banking family, the de’ Medici, Leo was highly cultured and proved to be Raphael’s most generous and influential patron. Raphael worked at the Apostolic Palace from Leo’s accession to the papal throne until his death.

As he became increasingly successful, Raphael employed up to fifty apprentices and artists. In addition, he oversaw a vast team of builders who were steadily replacing the old St Peter’s with a new and glorious basilica.

To the joy of his admirers and the envy of his competitors, Raphael’s star seemed ever in the ascendant. Courted by wealthy patrons and admired by the humanist circles of Renaissance Italy, Raphael took his place with the greatest artists of his day. He clearly had a competitive streak and was ambitious. There was a rumour that Leo X intended to create him a cardinal.

Raphael’s death on 6 April 1520, at the relatively young age of thirty-seven, stunned his contemporaries. Writing from Rome to Isabella d’Este on 7 April, Pandolfo Pico spoke of unusual portents. The roof of the pontiff’s rooms had collapsed shortly before, causing Leo to flee for safety and Michelangelo was reported as unwell. While he mistakenly claimed that Raphael was thirty-three at the time of his death, Pico wrote:

Here nobody speaks of anything else but the death of this fine man, who has finished his first life. But his second life, that of Fame which cannot be touched by Time and Death, shall be everlasting.

Five hundred years later, Raphael’s legacy endures.

Michael Collins

Author

Chapter 1

Historical Background: Alliances and Conflicts

Pope Leo III crowning Charlemagne as emperor on Christmas Day 800; from Chroniques de France ou de St Denis, fourteenth century

Following the collapse of the western portion of the Roman Empire at the end of the fifth century, the Italian peninsula was attacked by waves of invaders. To preserve their independence, regions established themselves as duchies, republics, principalities and kingdoms.

In the late eighth century, the papacy forged alliances with Frankish kings to defend territories that they claimed from the time of the emperor Constantine three centuries earlier. On Christmas Day in the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans in St Peter’s Square. The coronation marked the beginning of an era lasting several centuries when the popes and Holy Roman Emperors entered into alliances or abandoned each other according to the politics of the day.

Conflict arose over the selection of bishops and land. Bishops were not simply spiritual governors of dioceses; some were also wealthy landowners, receiving a tithe on the produce of those who worked on their lands. They may not have owned the properties themselves, but as long as they held office they enjoyed the abundant benefices. Properties were held for the good of the diocese but numerous bishops used their position to aggrandise their families and lived more like secular princes. From the end of the eleventh century, many families allied themselves to the emperor or the local bishop.

Life in the Middle Ages was feudal, based on a system where each person knew their rank in the social order. The average life expectancy was about forty years, and infant mortality was high. The aristocracy owed their hereditary titles to the emperor. Vassals, or citizens, received land from the lord in exchange for work and taxes. In times of war, the lord or king raised armies from the young men within his territories.

The city of Urbino today

In the latter half of the eleventh century, a dispute broke out between pope and emperor. The latter sought control over ecclesiastical properties in his territories, particularly the high offices that he wanted to grant to his political supporters. The popes saw this as an unwarranted abrogation of their spiritual authority.

In Italy those belonging to the faction loyal to the papacy were called Guelphs, an Italianisation of the German Welfs, dukes of Bavaria. Those who owed loyalty only to the emperor were known as Ghibillines, a corruption of Waiblingen, the German town where the faction originated. Various cities and duchies espoused one or other faction, regularly employing mercenary soldiers to augment their urban armies and go to war. The rivalry lasted into the middle of the sixteenth century when new invaders united them against a common enemy.

The city of Urbino had long owed allegiance to the imperial faction. The ruling da Montefeltro family, which dated from the twelfth century, had regularly shifted support from the papacy to the emperor according to political necessity.

Pope Eugenius IV

In 1403, Guidoantonio da Montefeltro inherited extensive lands from his father and further expanded his family holdings. The young Guidoantonio, a condottiere (mercenary soldier), wove his way between the papal and imperial factions, siding with one and then unexpectedly switching allegiance for the benefit of his family.

When he died on 21 February 1443, Guidoantonio was succeeded by his son, Oddantonio. The sixteen-year-old had little interest in politics and lacked experience in the cut-throat business of ruling. In April of that year, Pope Eugenius IV made him the first Duke of Urbino as a token of his gratitude for the family’s help in fighting the Sforza dynasty of Milan.

Oddantonio’s lack of application to the affairs of state gained him a gallery of enemies. During the night of 21 July 1444 conspirators gained access to the private chambers of the new duke, who had retired after a lengthy feast. Along with some loyal bodyguards, Oddantonio was stabbed to death. His corpse was thrown on the floor and the unidentified assassins slipped away.

Contemporaries speculated that Federico, Oddantonio’s half-brother, may have been implicated in the murder. Born out of wedlock in 1422, Federico was the son of Guidoantonio and Elisabetta degli Accomandugi. The young Federico was legitimised when his father convinced his wife, Caterina Colonna, a niece of Pope Martin V, to persuade the pope to acknowledge the boy as Guidoantonio’s heir. The pope agreed, and in a letter dated 20 December 1424, Martin decreed that