DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0227
RAPHAEL AS HUMANIST
rupted these beautiful and glorious schemes and jealously carried off the
master still in his youth.”
§ The planned Book: Single Sheets
Amongst initiated persons therefore, in circles in close touch with the artist
as with the Vatican, it was known that the publication of a book was planned,
perhaps of plans in book form. By the methods of the period this could only be
with engravings on copper or with woodcuts; but the original by Raphael, which
had to show so large an area, will have been, if not a painting, certainly a
wash-drawing. Even in print it must have presented a fairly substantial appear-
ance. Twelve years after Raphael’s death the Mantuan ambassador Fabrizio
Pellegrino reported on it to his Duke: he is sending him a 4‘disegno di Roma”,
4‘which has just appeared, showing the aspect of Rome as it once was in the time
of the Ancients, with its buildings”. And three weeks later: 44in a few days
another print will appear”—of Rome, “che fu disegno di Raphael da Urbino e e
bellissima cosa e molto copioso”—it was drawn by Raphael of Urbino and is
a very beautiful and comprehensive undertaking.
Sheets of illustrations in woodcut for a book were in existence, therefore,
or copperplate engravings for a series to appear in book form, like the later sets
of Lafreri, which there was reason to regard as originating with Raphael, that is,
made after his drawings. We can suppose that whatever had at any time been
privileged to come within the circle of his influence claimed to be part of his
activities, then as in later times, just as his pupils also invoked his name for
their tedious compositions in the Sala di Constantino. This report of the
Mantuan’s therefore is certainly no conclusive proof—but where did traces
survive of a work so much noticed and admired, of the beginning of which,
in the First Regions, so many persons closely connected with Raphael have given
evidence? Would Andrea Fulvio, in whose preface to the edition of his Anti-
quitates of February, 1527, no trace of false modesty can be observed, have failed
to notice the already existing manuscript of Raphael redounding to his own
glory? The book came from the press by Papal licence dated 15th February,
1527, a month before the Sacco di Roma\ the only known copy of this edition is
to-day in the possession of the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele in Rome. It would
not have been impossible that the entire stock was destroyed in the storms of
that catastrophe, when still in the hands of the publisher Ludovico Vicentino.
The second edition of 1532 (published in Rome, at the house of Valerius Doricus
of Brescia) contains nothing but fairly primitive woodcuts with which the shade
of the great master must not be taxed. Simultaneously with the Anti-
quitates of Fulvio a plan of Rome appeared—Antiques Urbis Romcecum regionibus
simulachrum—and was dedicated to Clement VII, by Fabio Calvi of Ravenna,
who in those years shared Raphael’s house and was his classical adviser in his
Vitruvius studies. One would have thought that, having been produced almost
209
rupted these beautiful and glorious schemes and jealously carried off the
master still in his youth.”
§ The planned Book: Single Sheets
Amongst initiated persons therefore, in circles in close touch with the artist
as with the Vatican, it was known that the publication of a book was planned,
perhaps of plans in book form. By the methods of the period this could only be
with engravings on copper or with woodcuts; but the original by Raphael, which
had to show so large an area, will have been, if not a painting, certainly a
wash-drawing. Even in print it must have presented a fairly substantial appear-
ance. Twelve years after Raphael’s death the Mantuan ambassador Fabrizio
Pellegrino reported on it to his Duke: he is sending him a 4‘disegno di Roma”,
4‘which has just appeared, showing the aspect of Rome as it once was in the time
of the Ancients, with its buildings”. And three weeks later: 44in a few days
another print will appear”—of Rome, “che fu disegno di Raphael da Urbino e e
bellissima cosa e molto copioso”—it was drawn by Raphael of Urbino and is
a very beautiful and comprehensive undertaking.
Sheets of illustrations in woodcut for a book were in existence, therefore,
or copperplate engravings for a series to appear in book form, like the later sets
of Lafreri, which there was reason to regard as originating with Raphael, that is,
made after his drawings. We can suppose that whatever had at any time been
privileged to come within the circle of his influence claimed to be part of his
activities, then as in later times, just as his pupils also invoked his name for
their tedious compositions in the Sala di Constantino. This report of the
Mantuan’s therefore is certainly no conclusive proof—but where did traces
survive of a work so much noticed and admired, of the beginning of which,
in the First Regions, so many persons closely connected with Raphael have given
evidence? Would Andrea Fulvio, in whose preface to the edition of his Anti-
quitates of February, 1527, no trace of false modesty can be observed, have failed
to notice the already existing manuscript of Raphael redounding to his own
glory? The book came from the press by Papal licence dated 15th February,
1527, a month before the Sacco di Roma\ the only known copy of this edition is
to-day in the possession of the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele in Rome. It would
not have been impossible that the entire stock was destroyed in the storms of
that catastrophe, when still in the hands of the publisher Ludovico Vicentino.
The second edition of 1532 (published in Rome, at the house of Valerius Doricus
of Brescia) contains nothing but fairly primitive woodcuts with which the shade
of the great master must not be taxed. Simultaneously with the Anti-
quitates of Fulvio a plan of Rome appeared—Antiques Urbis Romcecum regionibus
simulachrum—and was dedicated to Clement VII, by Fabio Calvi of Ravenna,
who in those years shared Raphael’s house and was his classical adviser in his
Vitruvius studies. One would have thought that, having been produced almost
209