DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0089
ROME
were at work in the Vatican in 1508 and the beginning of 1509. An oft-quoted
letter of Raphael to Francesco Francia at Bologna, about his activities at the
Vatican, is irrelevant, as an old forgery of a sentimental kind.
Certainly his entry into Rome remained among the great impressions of his
travelling period. At Loreto he made the acquaintance of Melozzo’s ceiling
in the Sagrestia della Cura and of Signorelli’s Conversion of St Paul; the
figure of Christ breaking in chastisement out of clouds remained with him until
the period of the tapestries. He was soon after to stand again in the presence
of Melozzo’s art and once more to admire the familiarity with another world
shown in his countryman’s painting. At Orvieto he saw for the first time a huge
vaulted area filled by a forceful creative will. The mighty movements of Signor-
elli’s figures had long been familiar to him at Urbino and Perugia; now, in the
Capella di San Brizio, he was granted the experience of seeing how the master
carried this significant pattern of human figures, over the arched wall-spaces
right up to the crown of the vault, and how, the more narrowly he was confined
by the horseshoe arches, the more he utilised this confinement as a means to
dramatic vitality; the other-worldly is forced upon the faithful as physical
experience, without impairing the sublimity which is its due, through the marked
objectiveness of the frame; this art of dominating space so as to make it the more
obedient to the laws of poetry, is here displayed well-nigh to perfection. Not since
the time of Masaccio had perspective been made thus subservient to narration.
Here it is precisely through perspective that the apocalyptic visions come to life.
The studies of the young Raphael on his journey towards his exalted destin-
ation abound in sparks of the passion of these first liberated bodies, the symbol
of true rebirth in classical detachment. His drawings of this period, the large
pen-sketches of heroic combat and obsequies, at Oxford, display bodies in the
style of Lysippus; it is the style of a youth, even for his age, impulsive and resilient.
And this young man is now introduced on the scene of the Vatican by the
Pope, who still retains his youthfulness. He gives him full power to do as he
will with the walls and, if anything has already been painted on them, authority
even over the artists and their works.
It is not known what paintings Raphael found already in existence there,
or what he was allowed to suppress by the injunctions of the Pope. If this were
known, we should perhaps gain information as to the original destination of the
apartment when Julius II had this upper series of rooms fitted up as a residence.
This was already decided upon in 1507, because he did not wish to remain for
ever condemned, in the Appartamento Borgia, to be reminded everywhere
by the walls of that “Maran”, his deadly enemy Alexander VI, and his infamies.
§ The Commission
When the present-day visitor to the Vatican comes into the Stanze, as into a
gallery, to see pictures, there awaits him, after several rooms, nothing but yet
7i
were at work in the Vatican in 1508 and the beginning of 1509. An oft-quoted
letter of Raphael to Francesco Francia at Bologna, about his activities at the
Vatican, is irrelevant, as an old forgery of a sentimental kind.
Certainly his entry into Rome remained among the great impressions of his
travelling period. At Loreto he made the acquaintance of Melozzo’s ceiling
in the Sagrestia della Cura and of Signorelli’s Conversion of St Paul; the
figure of Christ breaking in chastisement out of clouds remained with him until
the period of the tapestries. He was soon after to stand again in the presence
of Melozzo’s art and once more to admire the familiarity with another world
shown in his countryman’s painting. At Orvieto he saw for the first time a huge
vaulted area filled by a forceful creative will. The mighty movements of Signor-
elli’s figures had long been familiar to him at Urbino and Perugia; now, in the
Capella di San Brizio, he was granted the experience of seeing how the master
carried this significant pattern of human figures, over the arched wall-spaces
right up to the crown of the vault, and how, the more narrowly he was confined
by the horseshoe arches, the more he utilised this confinement as a means to
dramatic vitality; the other-worldly is forced upon the faithful as physical
experience, without impairing the sublimity which is its due, through the marked
objectiveness of the frame; this art of dominating space so as to make it the more
obedient to the laws of poetry, is here displayed well-nigh to perfection. Not since
the time of Masaccio had perspective been made thus subservient to narration.
Here it is precisely through perspective that the apocalyptic visions come to life.
The studies of the young Raphael on his journey towards his exalted destin-
ation abound in sparks of the passion of these first liberated bodies, the symbol
of true rebirth in classical detachment. His drawings of this period, the large
pen-sketches of heroic combat and obsequies, at Oxford, display bodies in the
style of Lysippus; it is the style of a youth, even for his age, impulsive and resilient.
And this young man is now introduced on the scene of the Vatican by the
Pope, who still retains his youthfulness. He gives him full power to do as he
will with the walls and, if anything has already been painted on them, authority
even over the artists and their works.
It is not known what paintings Raphael found already in existence there,
or what he was allowed to suppress by the injunctions of the Pope. If this were
known, we should perhaps gain information as to the original destination of the
apartment when Julius II had this upper series of rooms fitted up as a residence.
This was already decided upon in 1507, because he did not wish to remain for
ever condemned, in the Appartamento Borgia, to be reminded everywhere
by the walls of that “Maran”, his deadly enemy Alexander VI, and his infamies.
§ The Commission
When the present-day visitor to the Vatican comes into the Stanze, as into a
gallery, to see pictures, there awaits him, after several rooms, nothing but yet
7i