DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0195
RAPHAEL AND AGOSTINO CHIGI
substitutes for the lost dishes—especially as they agree approximately in their
measurements (42 cm.) with those stipulated in the contract. The Oxford
sheet (Plate 300), a design of a half circle, begins in Raphael’s own hand and
is finally carried through by another, which does not seem to be that of any
of the known assistants. The Dresden circle shows traces of preliminary drawing
in red chalk in many places, but is carried out by the hand of a pupil and gives
Raphael’s brilliant motives in a less inspired hand, perhaps that of the young
Giulio Romano. The sketch on the back of the Windsor drawing for the
Massacre of the Innocents (Plate 190, R. V, 235), very likely represents the
first idea for such a subject; by its closeness to the ceiling of the Stanza della
Segnatura and to the School of Athens, and on internal evidence also, it belongs
already to the period denoted by the contract.
These show dishes were certainly intended for one of the famous banquets of
Agostino, and this is entirely appropriate to such a company, saturated in
Antique ideas and, in a full-blooded manner, fulfilling with its vitality the
classical conceptions; so we may well imagine how this Bacchic thiasos was taken
as an allusion when the host, who had once said to the Pope that he had a fleet
of a hundred ships sailing on every sea, had fruit presented to his guests on these
dishes encircled by the powers, surging in wild conflict with one another, of
that element which he knew to be tributary to himself over as wide a range
as had once been traversed by Dionysus in his progress over the seas.
Of Chigi’s much-renowned art treasures we know little more than that he
possessed antiques, medals and gems “like the wealth of the Imperatives”—and
we surmise what inspirations were bestowed from this sparkling abundance
upon the artists who shared and augmented his delights.
§ Birth of Venus
“Hie Venus orta mari et concha sub sydera fertur” are the words ofBlosio
Palladio in the poem Selva’, it appeared in Rome in 1512, and sings of the
Farnesina when it was not yet finished. Thus the verses could not refer to the
Galatea, even if we could see in this a Triumph of Venus; this fresco came into
existence hardly before 1514. It must therefore have been another picture of
the foam-born goddess that the poet had before his eyes. Perhaps one of
Raphael’s drawings puts us on the track of the lost painting that belonged to
Chigi. Among sketches for the Disputa and early Roman Madonna-composi-
tions on a sheet in the Uffizi (R. VI, 264) there is one of the rare schemes
for pictures already entirely framed in a vertical rectangle—Venus rising
from the sea, in the consciousness of her revealed beauty, conceals herself in
the attitude of the Aphrodite of the Capitoline and of the Medici Venus; in this
case she is transposed into the mode of Ariosto, in masculine triumph: his fair
ones fettered to rocks would here greet their sister. Drawn with pen-strokes
swelling in crescendo and diminuendo, the solid, magnificently compact forms
177
substitutes for the lost dishes—especially as they agree approximately in their
measurements (42 cm.) with those stipulated in the contract. The Oxford
sheet (Plate 300), a design of a half circle, begins in Raphael’s own hand and
is finally carried through by another, which does not seem to be that of any
of the known assistants. The Dresden circle shows traces of preliminary drawing
in red chalk in many places, but is carried out by the hand of a pupil and gives
Raphael’s brilliant motives in a less inspired hand, perhaps that of the young
Giulio Romano. The sketch on the back of the Windsor drawing for the
Massacre of the Innocents (Plate 190, R. V, 235), very likely represents the
first idea for such a subject; by its closeness to the ceiling of the Stanza della
Segnatura and to the School of Athens, and on internal evidence also, it belongs
already to the period denoted by the contract.
These show dishes were certainly intended for one of the famous banquets of
Agostino, and this is entirely appropriate to such a company, saturated in
Antique ideas and, in a full-blooded manner, fulfilling with its vitality the
classical conceptions; so we may well imagine how this Bacchic thiasos was taken
as an allusion when the host, who had once said to the Pope that he had a fleet
of a hundred ships sailing on every sea, had fruit presented to his guests on these
dishes encircled by the powers, surging in wild conflict with one another, of
that element which he knew to be tributary to himself over as wide a range
as had once been traversed by Dionysus in his progress over the seas.
Of Chigi’s much-renowned art treasures we know little more than that he
possessed antiques, medals and gems “like the wealth of the Imperatives”—and
we surmise what inspirations were bestowed from this sparkling abundance
upon the artists who shared and augmented his delights.
§ Birth of Venus
“Hie Venus orta mari et concha sub sydera fertur” are the words ofBlosio
Palladio in the poem Selva’, it appeared in Rome in 1512, and sings of the
Farnesina when it was not yet finished. Thus the verses could not refer to the
Galatea, even if we could see in this a Triumph of Venus; this fresco came into
existence hardly before 1514. It must therefore have been another picture of
the foam-born goddess that the poet had before his eyes. Perhaps one of
Raphael’s drawings puts us on the track of the lost painting that belonged to
Chigi. Among sketches for the Disputa and early Roman Madonna-composi-
tions on a sheet in the Uffizi (R. VI, 264) there is one of the rare schemes
for pictures already entirely framed in a vertical rectangle—Venus rising
from the sea, in the consciousness of her revealed beauty, conceals herself in
the attitude of the Aphrodite of the Capitoline and of the Medici Venus; in this
case she is transposed into the mode of Ariosto, in masculine triumph: his fair
ones fettered to rocks would here greet their sister. Drawn with pen-strokes
swelling in crescendo and diminuendo, the solid, magnificently compact forms
177