DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0130
RAPHAEL
Uffizi to the late Self-portrait with a Friend in the Louvre. This is the
demeanour, in the fresco of the Decretals, of the younger Cardinals as they
gather round the throne of the Holy Father (Plate 87). Like a permanent mould,
it was, and still is to the present day, in ecclesiastical circles, filled almost as if de
rigueur, again and again with new life. It presented itself to Raphael, when he
entered the Vatican circle, as something long familiar which it was quite
natural, a matter of course even, to experience.
The enigmatic portrait of a Cardinal, at Madrid (Plate 117), can perhaps be
traced to the first sensation of such states of tension; such profound experience is
in his look that it might be doubted whether one may say “of a young Cardinal”.
Even the date of its origin is uncertain; only the peculiar enamel quality of the
colour permits the surmise that it was executed before Raphael’s hand was
freely accustomed to fresco-painting. The Florentine portraits have made us
familiar with the absolute completeness of colour-harmony that has now been
reached. Note the red tones of the biretta and the watered silk of the mozzetta—
brilliant and shaded off till it dies away in the olive-green background—in
between, the pale face with lips keyed in colour to the red above and below,
the whole presentment gaining a convincingly plastic quality by means of the
white sleeve and the set of the hand (it is possible that the finishing-off below
is here wanting). It is contrary to Raphael’s custom for a motive to conflict
with the frame. Everything in the plastic movement seems to follow the lines
of the prominent nose and to provide the framework for the uncanny composure
in the face, with its far-away, ardent eyes and the grace that hovers over the
narrow lips.
No finality has been reached in conjectures as to the identity of the subject;
Alidosi, the favourite of Julius II, Cardinal Schinner, and Bibbiena have been
suggested. It is most probable that we are here looking into the eyes of Cardinal
Ippolito d’Este, of which he was so proud. He has the profile of the Este,
especially of Ippolito’s father Alfonso I, and Castiglione gives in the Cortegiano, I,
14, a literary portrait of his “grave autorita” in his younger years that would be
peculiarly appropriate to the character here depicted, in its daemonic, tragic
mysteriousness.
We see that Raphael discovered the style for stating the same things as the
“formator del Cortegiano”; he himself had ripened into a man of the world,
and had observed the individual phenomenon in this solar system of the Vatican
that came within his aspect, with the serene superiority of a member of it.
Besides the Princes of the Church, consumed with wordly passion, we have the
easy-going, witty Prebendary Tommaso Inghirami, called Fedra (Plate 118). In
the part of the queen, in a performance of Seneca’s Hippolytus, he had once im-
provised endless verses in Latin, to the rapturous delight of all humanists, when
the curtain failed to function at the end of an act. To this man of refined taste in
several domains at once the Vatican Library owes its arrangement; he is the
112
Uffizi to the late Self-portrait with a Friend in the Louvre. This is the
demeanour, in the fresco of the Decretals, of the younger Cardinals as they
gather round the throne of the Holy Father (Plate 87). Like a permanent mould,
it was, and still is to the present day, in ecclesiastical circles, filled almost as if de
rigueur, again and again with new life. It presented itself to Raphael, when he
entered the Vatican circle, as something long familiar which it was quite
natural, a matter of course even, to experience.
The enigmatic portrait of a Cardinal, at Madrid (Plate 117), can perhaps be
traced to the first sensation of such states of tension; such profound experience is
in his look that it might be doubted whether one may say “of a young Cardinal”.
Even the date of its origin is uncertain; only the peculiar enamel quality of the
colour permits the surmise that it was executed before Raphael’s hand was
freely accustomed to fresco-painting. The Florentine portraits have made us
familiar with the absolute completeness of colour-harmony that has now been
reached. Note the red tones of the biretta and the watered silk of the mozzetta—
brilliant and shaded off till it dies away in the olive-green background—in
between, the pale face with lips keyed in colour to the red above and below,
the whole presentment gaining a convincingly plastic quality by means of the
white sleeve and the set of the hand (it is possible that the finishing-off below
is here wanting). It is contrary to Raphael’s custom for a motive to conflict
with the frame. Everything in the plastic movement seems to follow the lines
of the prominent nose and to provide the framework for the uncanny composure
in the face, with its far-away, ardent eyes and the grace that hovers over the
narrow lips.
No finality has been reached in conjectures as to the identity of the subject;
Alidosi, the favourite of Julius II, Cardinal Schinner, and Bibbiena have been
suggested. It is most probable that we are here looking into the eyes of Cardinal
Ippolito d’Este, of which he was so proud. He has the profile of the Este,
especially of Ippolito’s father Alfonso I, and Castiglione gives in the Cortegiano, I,
14, a literary portrait of his “grave autorita” in his younger years that would be
peculiarly appropriate to the character here depicted, in its daemonic, tragic
mysteriousness.
We see that Raphael discovered the style for stating the same things as the
“formator del Cortegiano”; he himself had ripened into a man of the world,
and had observed the individual phenomenon in this solar system of the Vatican
that came within his aspect, with the serene superiority of a member of it.
Besides the Princes of the Church, consumed with wordly passion, we have the
easy-going, witty Prebendary Tommaso Inghirami, called Fedra (Plate 118). In
the part of the queen, in a performance of Seneca’s Hippolytus, he had once im-
provised endless verses in Latin, to the rapturous delight of all humanists, when
the curtain failed to function at the end of an act. To this man of refined taste in
several domains at once the Vatican Library owes its arrangement; he is the
112