DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0161
RAPHAEL AS ARCHITECT
of Raphael’s architecture. It was in this form, not the Greek, that he learned
to venerate the Antique; it was not the organic refinement of the Greek archi-
tectural members but the Roman will to spatial expression, subordinating to
itself all articulation, that he first of all recognised, and in his maturity felt as a
claim upon him which he discharged. Here also he was a renovator in Plato’s
sense. He awakened a “forgotten antiquity” and thereby became the leader
into a new land.
§ Buildings in Pictures: Temple in the Sposalizio
“The child is father of the man”; everything in the way of architecture that
occurs in his youthful works, still under the eye of Perugino, shows situations
fully thought out. The hall in which Mary receives the Angelic Salutation—in
the predella of the Coronation of the Virgin, in the Vatican—already presents
an interior carried out in detailed structure in complete maturity, and the impulse
towards a comprehensive whole which alone makes the true architect, is betrayed
by the fact that the relation of this beautiful structure of masonry to the land-
scape, of the fashioned building-material to the soil whence it sprang and to
which it returns, can be so happily sensed.
Then at the end of his apprenticeship he devised the temple in the Sposalizio
(Plate 152). Here there was little to learn from his master Perugino. This painter’s
temples in the Delivery of the Keys, in the Sistine Chapel, or in the Sposalizio at
Caen, have nothing but a profile; his cupolas fit as badly as the hats of his
figures. Raphael’s figures with the breath-inspired soundness of their limbs
require for their existence, even in these early works, a spacious environment of
landscape and buildings. In this, reminiscences of the architect’s dreams of
Luciano speak as a legacy from his home country. In the house of the Santi
more was known of these dreams than was ever realised or left for us to become
acquainted with to-day. A favourite idea of the Renaissance, the focussing in a
round temple of a wide view over a clearly articulated open space, is here
brought to preliminary fulfilment. Spalato is the site of Diocletian’s mausoleum.
Laurana would have been no architect of the Renaissance if he had not adopted
such a monument, an ideal type for his time, a building dating from Antiquity
constructed round a centre. This suggestion was seen, revived, in the Sposalizio.
The young painter-architect of twenty years sets his temple in a landscape; his
imagination chooses for it the most beautiful of situations: the lines lead from a
wide valley to gentle elevations. Into this setting he builds a broad-paved
terrace like the Mercato behind the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena; the drama seems
as it were to be played on a stage with a wide prospect—and he carries on the
pavement into the hexagonal stepped platform and thence up into the temple.
Thus the building with its halls develops out of the lines of the terrain and
reverts vitally into the wide landscape. Palladio did not show a more beautiful
understanding of giving back to the earth its own in the fashioned stone, and
M3
of Raphael’s architecture. It was in this form, not the Greek, that he learned
to venerate the Antique; it was not the organic refinement of the Greek archi-
tectural members but the Roman will to spatial expression, subordinating to
itself all articulation, that he first of all recognised, and in his maturity felt as a
claim upon him which he discharged. Here also he was a renovator in Plato’s
sense. He awakened a “forgotten antiquity” and thereby became the leader
into a new land.
§ Buildings in Pictures: Temple in the Sposalizio
“The child is father of the man”; everything in the way of architecture that
occurs in his youthful works, still under the eye of Perugino, shows situations
fully thought out. The hall in which Mary receives the Angelic Salutation—in
the predella of the Coronation of the Virgin, in the Vatican—already presents
an interior carried out in detailed structure in complete maturity, and the impulse
towards a comprehensive whole which alone makes the true architect, is betrayed
by the fact that the relation of this beautiful structure of masonry to the land-
scape, of the fashioned building-material to the soil whence it sprang and to
which it returns, can be so happily sensed.
Then at the end of his apprenticeship he devised the temple in the Sposalizio
(Plate 152). Here there was little to learn from his master Perugino. This painter’s
temples in the Delivery of the Keys, in the Sistine Chapel, or in the Sposalizio at
Caen, have nothing but a profile; his cupolas fit as badly as the hats of his
figures. Raphael’s figures with the breath-inspired soundness of their limbs
require for their existence, even in these early works, a spacious environment of
landscape and buildings. In this, reminiscences of the architect’s dreams of
Luciano speak as a legacy from his home country. In the house of the Santi
more was known of these dreams than was ever realised or left for us to become
acquainted with to-day. A favourite idea of the Renaissance, the focussing in a
round temple of a wide view over a clearly articulated open space, is here
brought to preliminary fulfilment. Spalato is the site of Diocletian’s mausoleum.
Laurana would have been no architect of the Renaissance if he had not adopted
such a monument, an ideal type for his time, a building dating from Antiquity
constructed round a centre. This suggestion was seen, revived, in the Sposalizio.
The young painter-architect of twenty years sets his temple in a landscape; his
imagination chooses for it the most beautiful of situations: the lines lead from a
wide valley to gentle elevations. Into this setting he builds a broad-paved
terrace like the Mercato behind the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena; the drama seems
as it were to be played on a stage with a wide prospect—and he carries on the
pavement into the hexagonal stepped platform and thence up into the temple.
Thus the building with its halls develops out of the lines of the terrain and
reverts vitally into the wide landscape. Palladio did not show a more beautiful
understanding of giving back to the earth its own in the fashioned stone, and
M3