DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0104
RAPHAEL
“Vidi il maestro de color chi sanno
Seder tra filosofica familia
Tutti 1’amiran, tutti onor gli fanno . . d’1
They form themselves into groups, gather in clusters, exploring, discussing,
construing, writing. But suddenly, in the midst of all the throng, one group
becomes clearly dominant to the eye. They line up, where a space opens down
to the ground in front of the sublime pair that come stepping forward out of
the recess, attending only to one another and both full of the loftiest ideas,
Plato and Aristotle.
Here also it has been asked to whom Raphael was indebted for the scheme.
Yet whoever this may be, Raphael’s achievement in giving pictorial form to
philosophy could only have been the result of a culture innate and developed.
From childhood up, he was a familiar figure in the Ducal Palace at Urbino,
and to Italians of the Renaissance such as he, these great philosophers signified
not authors of books but creators of a way of living. Thus everything that
furthered humanistic cultivation of life, which then meant cultivation with a
view to the dignity of man, was here consummated in this pair of figures as
they went on their way unimpeded beneath the lofty vaults of the hall.
Plato, we read in the Farbenlehre (II Abt. “Ueberliefertes”)—“Plato directs his
movements towards the heights, in his yearning to participate once more in the
origin from which he sprang. Aristotle on the other hand stands facing the
world like a man, and a man who is an architect. At the moment he is here,
and this is to be the scene of his creative activity.” In him we see the perfect
cortegiano. They step forward, seen against the background of the great open
arch; everything leads the eye towards them—the lines of the pavement, the
cornices of the vault, the gaze of the disciples, just as in the Last Supper Christ,
in front of the window, draws every line towards himself. Clear above all the
seekers stand out these two discoverers of what can make men noble and good,
that is, fit to be exemplars and dignified in their attitude towards life. No
learned adviser could have communicated to Raphael the inspiration for the
sweeping stride of Plato and his heavenward gesture, nor for the bearing of
Aristotle, to whom belong life and earth, free and bold and noble-minded, and
yet mindful of the appearance he presents. Let us ask ourselves what this hand
signifies—no seizing of what is earthly, but rather the gesture of the conductor
of an orchestra when as “master” he checks the swell of a crescendo—“halt
Mass”, “keep within compass”, the favourite motto of Renaissance man and so
even of its “architects”. There he stands, body and mind in equilibrium, even
to his garments, the masculine ideal of those times, ancestor of many a later
1££The master I beheld of those who know
Seated amid the philosophic band;
All do him honour, on him with wonder gaze.”
86
“Vidi il maestro de color chi sanno
Seder tra filosofica familia
Tutti 1’amiran, tutti onor gli fanno . . d’1
They form themselves into groups, gather in clusters, exploring, discussing,
construing, writing. But suddenly, in the midst of all the throng, one group
becomes clearly dominant to the eye. They line up, where a space opens down
to the ground in front of the sublime pair that come stepping forward out of
the recess, attending only to one another and both full of the loftiest ideas,
Plato and Aristotle.
Here also it has been asked to whom Raphael was indebted for the scheme.
Yet whoever this may be, Raphael’s achievement in giving pictorial form to
philosophy could only have been the result of a culture innate and developed.
From childhood up, he was a familiar figure in the Ducal Palace at Urbino,
and to Italians of the Renaissance such as he, these great philosophers signified
not authors of books but creators of a way of living. Thus everything that
furthered humanistic cultivation of life, which then meant cultivation with a
view to the dignity of man, was here consummated in this pair of figures as
they went on their way unimpeded beneath the lofty vaults of the hall.
Plato, we read in the Farbenlehre (II Abt. “Ueberliefertes”)—“Plato directs his
movements towards the heights, in his yearning to participate once more in the
origin from which he sprang. Aristotle on the other hand stands facing the
world like a man, and a man who is an architect. At the moment he is here,
and this is to be the scene of his creative activity.” In him we see the perfect
cortegiano. They step forward, seen against the background of the great open
arch; everything leads the eye towards them—the lines of the pavement, the
cornices of the vault, the gaze of the disciples, just as in the Last Supper Christ,
in front of the window, draws every line towards himself. Clear above all the
seekers stand out these two discoverers of what can make men noble and good,
that is, fit to be exemplars and dignified in their attitude towards life. No
learned adviser could have communicated to Raphael the inspiration for the
sweeping stride of Plato and his heavenward gesture, nor for the bearing of
Aristotle, to whom belong life and earth, free and bold and noble-minded, and
yet mindful of the appearance he presents. Let us ask ourselves what this hand
signifies—no seizing of what is earthly, but rather the gesture of the conductor
of an orchestra when as “master” he checks the swell of a crescendo—“halt
Mass”, “keep within compass”, the favourite motto of Renaissance man and so
even of its “architects”. There he stands, body and mind in equilibrium, even
to his garments, the masculine ideal of those times, ancestor of many a later
1££The master I beheld of those who know
Seated amid the philosophic band;
All do him honour, on him with wonder gaze.”
86