DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0177
RAPHAEL AS ARCHITECT
Even apart from this, an attentive eye may succeed in detecting much more
besides that allows us to draw conclusions as to the world in which he had to
live and for which he had to create. It will be interesting to notice what
remained from Antiquity, in the way of beautiful and lively motives, for Raphael
and his circle to see, to be awakened to renewed life in the stuccoes and decorative
paintings. A precise archaeological inventory of these is given in Hofmann’s
Raphael als Architekt (Vol. IV). But we are grateful for the information afforded
as to the mode of life in the Vatican in Raphael’s time. Thus on the fourth
window-pier there is actually a small stucco medallion telling us of an intimate
ceremonial scene in the house of the owner of the Loggie himself: in the vista
of a corridor with a series of cross-vaults on Tuscan pilasters His Holiness Pope
Leo X himself gives his blessing to a man kneeling with a roll in his hand. Is
it a Cardinal, and if so, who? Perhaps Pucci, whose commissions were so
lovingly to be immortalised in these very apartments? And what is the scene of
the incident—is it the lower Loggie, or the Library that was so especially dear
to the heart of the owner? In a medallion on a pillar of the fourth bay
appears a necromancer and astrologer, perhaps the Genoese Ceccotto, who
amused the Court with his astrological conjurings.
§ The Assistants
On the first pillar on the right we have before us, in a frieze-like stucco
relief, the workshop, on this, its site of operations: to the right, before a suspended
drapery, an assistant sits at a folding table with a sheet of paper before him;
whether he is drawing or pricking the sheet cannot be made out. Next in order,
to the left, follows a bearded dwarfish assistant, who holds ready the pots of
colour on a board. A third is busy laying a long cartoon against the wall, so
as to apply the drawings on to the freshly plastered wall, whether by transferring
them with the help of spolvero., that is, pounced tracing, or by impressing their
outlines with a* stylus in the wet plaster; beside him a mason appears to be
preparing the plaster, and on the extreme left sits a young painter—-the grace-
fulness of his pose distinguishes him clearly from these “banausii” as the
creative designer—applying his art, lovingly yet with ease, to the wall of the
pillar.
In the circular medallion above, an assistant is grinding colours on a table,
and on a pelta above this is the painter, sitting on the ground with a block,
drawing—whether Raphael himself or a pupil cannot be determined: perhaps
it is Giovanni da Udine or the young Perino. We feel that here, in the provision
of recreation, the whole content of life was in a wonderful manner brought
into play—from the artist to the Pope, the master of the house, from architect
to painter, from building to landscape, from art to nature, from artistic serious-
ness to ironical self-contemplation—and at the very moment in which this
exuberance of fancy was gushing forth with such wantonness, the Ferrarese
159
Even apart from this, an attentive eye may succeed in detecting much more
besides that allows us to draw conclusions as to the world in which he had to
live and for which he had to create. It will be interesting to notice what
remained from Antiquity, in the way of beautiful and lively motives, for Raphael
and his circle to see, to be awakened to renewed life in the stuccoes and decorative
paintings. A precise archaeological inventory of these is given in Hofmann’s
Raphael als Architekt (Vol. IV). But we are grateful for the information afforded
as to the mode of life in the Vatican in Raphael’s time. Thus on the fourth
window-pier there is actually a small stucco medallion telling us of an intimate
ceremonial scene in the house of the owner of the Loggie himself: in the vista
of a corridor with a series of cross-vaults on Tuscan pilasters His Holiness Pope
Leo X himself gives his blessing to a man kneeling with a roll in his hand. Is
it a Cardinal, and if so, who? Perhaps Pucci, whose commissions were so
lovingly to be immortalised in these very apartments? And what is the scene of
the incident—is it the lower Loggie, or the Library that was so especially dear
to the heart of the owner? In a medallion on a pillar of the fourth bay
appears a necromancer and astrologer, perhaps the Genoese Ceccotto, who
amused the Court with his astrological conjurings.
§ The Assistants
On the first pillar on the right we have before us, in a frieze-like stucco
relief, the workshop, on this, its site of operations: to the right, before a suspended
drapery, an assistant sits at a folding table with a sheet of paper before him;
whether he is drawing or pricking the sheet cannot be made out. Next in order,
to the left, follows a bearded dwarfish assistant, who holds ready the pots of
colour on a board. A third is busy laying a long cartoon against the wall, so
as to apply the drawings on to the freshly plastered wall, whether by transferring
them with the help of spolvero., that is, pounced tracing, or by impressing their
outlines with a* stylus in the wet plaster; beside him a mason appears to be
preparing the plaster, and on the extreme left sits a young painter—-the grace-
fulness of his pose distinguishes him clearly from these “banausii” as the
creative designer—applying his art, lovingly yet with ease, to the wall of the
pillar.
In the circular medallion above, an assistant is grinding colours on a table,
and on a pelta above this is the painter, sitting on the ground with a block,
drawing—whether Raphael himself or a pupil cannot be determined: perhaps
it is Giovanni da Udine or the young Perino. We feel that here, in the provision
of recreation, the whole content of life was in a wonderful manner brought
into play—from the artist to the Pope, the master of the house, from architect
to painter, from building to landscape, from art to nature, from artistic serious-
ness to ironical self-contemplation—and at the very moment in which this
exuberance of fancy was gushing forth with such wantonness, the Ferrarese
159