DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0073
FLORENCE
§ The Urbino Circle
At least as early as that date therefore the perfect Cortegiano among cour-
tiers, and the Cortegiano then attaining perfectness among painters, were
acquainted with one another. In this same year the “formator del cortegiano”,
as Ariosto calls the Count, was composing the conversations in the illustrious
intellectual circle in the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino. Count Canossa was already
an object of banter in the dialogues on account of his fondness for the Urbino
Master, and we hear Raphael spoken of as in the same rank with Leonardo,
Michael Angelo and Giorgione. The dialogue appeared as a book a decade
later. Perhaps these observations were only interpolated in the intervening
period, when the fame of the painter had reached its zenith. Yet they accord
historically with the degree of esteem attained by Raphael in that select circle.
He was at that same time called “the best painter of Perugia”, and the preten-
tious Court of Urbino could find no one more capable of representing it abroad
through a return gift worthy of the royal friendship. His art was thus placed
on the same rank with the skill and dignity of the “Pattern of all Caoalieri”.
Raphael’s entry into the great world will have to be dated at this period, and
it has to be borne in mind that in those days the great world and artistic pre-
tentions were still inseparable. Thus society early recognised in him their
portrait-painter, and he in them the circle befitting himself.
The boy who already at the age of twelve looked at himself, in his uncon-
scious superiority and distinction, was born to be interpreter of men and of
their nature. To include him in the ranks of this leading class is more than a
play upon the word “cortegiano”. His sense of the ideal, that made of him the
poet of the Virgin Mother, gave him access also to the ideal figure of the circle
that realised in itself, thanks to the beautiful illusion of “rebirth”, the true re-
creation of man. It was rather a tremendous, self-conscious emulation of the
Antique. A harmonious moderation here prevails over the grouping of the most
diverse elements. The attitude towards the world is always receptive and
always exclusive, ever outwardly balanced; in the man of this class, it is
the dominating power in his contact with fife, whatever quality in him may
inevitably prevail. It causes him to appear superior, whether he be pugnacious
or compliant, aloof or resigned; to seem at rest in himself, “not irritated without
great occasion”. All that gravitates about this mean conforms also with this
principle.
§ Borghese Gallery Portrait. Francesco Maria della Rovere
This quality belonged to the young portrait-painter at the age of seventeen.
It was a scholar or a sceptic, hardly an artist and certainly not Perugino, but
surely a cultivated, self-cultivating humanist, of whom the character was
faithfully interpreted by Raphael, at the time of the Coronation of the
Virgin, in that much-disputed Portrait in the Borghese Gallery—exactly
55
§ The Urbino Circle
At least as early as that date therefore the perfect Cortegiano among cour-
tiers, and the Cortegiano then attaining perfectness among painters, were
acquainted with one another. In this same year the “formator del cortegiano”,
as Ariosto calls the Count, was composing the conversations in the illustrious
intellectual circle in the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino. Count Canossa was already
an object of banter in the dialogues on account of his fondness for the Urbino
Master, and we hear Raphael spoken of as in the same rank with Leonardo,
Michael Angelo and Giorgione. The dialogue appeared as a book a decade
later. Perhaps these observations were only interpolated in the intervening
period, when the fame of the painter had reached its zenith. Yet they accord
historically with the degree of esteem attained by Raphael in that select circle.
He was at that same time called “the best painter of Perugia”, and the preten-
tious Court of Urbino could find no one more capable of representing it abroad
through a return gift worthy of the royal friendship. His art was thus placed
on the same rank with the skill and dignity of the “Pattern of all Caoalieri”.
Raphael’s entry into the great world will have to be dated at this period, and
it has to be borne in mind that in those days the great world and artistic pre-
tentions were still inseparable. Thus society early recognised in him their
portrait-painter, and he in them the circle befitting himself.
The boy who already at the age of twelve looked at himself, in his uncon-
scious superiority and distinction, was born to be interpreter of men and of
their nature. To include him in the ranks of this leading class is more than a
play upon the word “cortegiano”. His sense of the ideal, that made of him the
poet of the Virgin Mother, gave him access also to the ideal figure of the circle
that realised in itself, thanks to the beautiful illusion of “rebirth”, the true re-
creation of man. It was rather a tremendous, self-conscious emulation of the
Antique. A harmonious moderation here prevails over the grouping of the most
diverse elements. The attitude towards the world is always receptive and
always exclusive, ever outwardly balanced; in the man of this class, it is
the dominating power in his contact with fife, whatever quality in him may
inevitably prevail. It causes him to appear superior, whether he be pugnacious
or compliant, aloof or resigned; to seem at rest in himself, “not irritated without
great occasion”. All that gravitates about this mean conforms also with this
principle.
§ Borghese Gallery Portrait. Francesco Maria della Rovere
This quality belonged to the young portrait-painter at the age of seventeen.
It was a scholar or a sceptic, hardly an artist and certainly not Perugino, but
surely a cultivated, self-cultivating humanist, of whom the character was
faithfully interpreted by Raphael, at the time of the Coronation of the
Virgin, in that much-disputed Portrait in the Borghese Gallery—exactly
55